Carlo Ancelotti Can Banish the Spectre of Jose Mourinho

Three years on from his departure, Jose Mourinho still casts a shadow over Stamford Bridge.

Every football club has its towering figures. Seven trophies in three glorious years ensures that Mourinho stands head and shoulders above the rest in the pantheon of Chelsea legends.

The Special One’s spell in West London was unforgettable, many still pine for him.

His predecessors are judged against his almost impossibly high standards, and they haven’t exactly matched the Portuguese tactician.

Avram Grant did better than many expected in guiding the Blues to second in the Premier League (I remember saying I would settle for fourth when he was appointed) and of course to the Champions League Final in Moscow. However, throughout his reign there was an inescapable feeling that he wasn’t quite good enough.

Did he really have any discernible effect on the players? Or did they simply do so well because of their ability?

Luiz Felipe Scolari’s initially dazzling brand of football quickly got found out and he didn’t even last the season.

Guus Hiddink came closest to replicating the success of Mourinho, picking up the club’s fifth FA Cup and taking Chelsea to within minutes of a second successive Champions League Final. It is the stuff of conjecture but had Terry and co. lined up against Manchester United in Rome, the Holy Grail could very well have been residing in West London.

Now, Carlo Ancelotti is the latest manager to take up the poisoned chalice that the Chelsea job appears to have become. His start to life at Stamford Bridge has been impressive so far—top of the Premier League, into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and the knockout phase of the Champions League.

But he has achieved nothing yet.

Roman Abramovich ruthlessly demands success, and a Premier League title or a Champions League would go some way to placating him.

To get to Madrid he will have to get past the Special One himself.

The squad Ancelotti inherited is largely the same as the one Mourinho had when he left. The same players—Cech, Terry, Essien, Lampard, Drogba—remain as key as ever.

The style of play has changed though.

While Mourinho's Chelsea were not completely devoid of attacking flair, they showed it only in flashes.

Ancelotti, on the other hand, has introduced a more open style of play, and some of the football his team has been playing has been scintillating.

In Milan and London, we will see Chelsea's past and future collide.

For Ancelotti, there can be no better way of banishing the past than felling its embodiment.