Ancelotti demands double balm for Euro agony

Carlo Ancelotti has played down speculation that he will rip his ageing Chelsea squad apart this summer in an attempt to deliver the Champions League triumph craved by owner Roman Abramovich.

Instead, the Italian has challenged his players to bounce back from their Champions League exit by completing a domestic league and cup double.

The Blues’ midweek exit from Europe’s elite competition at the hands of Inter Milan has triggered talk of a mega-bucks move for Liverpool striker Fernando Torres funded by the offloading of a string of the club’s 30-somethings.

But Ancelotti insisted plans for the summer had not even reached the drawing board stage.

“We haven’t planned, it’s not the time now to plan,” the Italian said.

“We have to look to the next game. We have 11 matches left until the end of the season and, after them, we’ll have a lot of time to speak about the future of this team.

“It’s normal that, with a new season, there are new faces. This is normal.

“Really, now, I want to think about this team. I want to put this team in the best position until the end of the season.

“Now is not the right moment, we have other things to think about. We have to look at the Premier League and the FA Cup. We can still have a fantastic season. We are involved in two important competitions so, after this disappointment, we need to have a good reaction.”

Abramovich spoke with Ancelotti and his squad at their Cobham training ground on Thursday, the manager confirmed.

“We didn’t speak about the future, about the changes for next season, because it’s not the right time to speak about this,” he added.

“I said we have important games in the next week and we have to stay focused – all the players and all the club.

“Roman was disappointed and he’s the owner of a club that’s out of the Champions League. Everyone was disappointed about the last game against Inter.

“We didn’t have a good performance on Tuesday because I said we’d lost the confidence in our play.

“We didn’t play like we wanted. I think the players tried to do their best, but we didn’t do our best. I have trust in these players, confidence.

“It can happen that, sometimes, we are not able to do what we want. But nothing else. I have fantastic, professional players and we will have a very good reaction.”

The quality of that reaction will be apparent when Chelsea visit Blackburn on Sunday, hoping to collect three points and take advantage of any slip-ups by Manchester United, who entertain Liverpool earlier in the afternoon.

Chelsea go into the weekend two points adrift of leaders United but with a game in hand.

“Our destiny is in our own hands,” Ancelotti underlined. “If we win every game, we can do the double. That’s very difficult, but we can try to do this. That’s very important, to think about this.

“Only five teams, I think, have won a double in 140 years here in England. It’s not easy, but we can think about this and do our best. That’s our aim.”