Chelsea axe Ancelotti

Chelsea moved quickly to fire Carlo Ancelotti with the Italian manger dismissed just hours after the final game of the season.

The Blues were beaten 1-0 by 10-man Everton at Goodison Park on the final day of the Premier League, a result which capped off an altogether disappointing season for the reigning champions.

And clearly owner Roman Abramovich and the club’s board held Ancelotti responsible for the poor results, with the Italian losing his job despite winning the Premier League-FA Cup double last season.

“Chelsea Football Club can confirm that Carlo Ancelotti parted company with the club today (Sunday, 22 May),” the club said in a statement on its website.

“The owner and board would like to thank Carlo for his contribution and achievements since taking over as manager in July 2009, which included winning the double for the first time in the club’s history.”

“However, this season’s performances have fallen short of expectations and the club feels the time is right to make this change ahead of next season’s preparations.”

“Carlo will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge, where he will be given the reception and respect his position in our history deserves.”

“Chelsea’s long-term football objectives and ambitions remain unchanged and we will now be concentrating all our efforts on identifying a new manager.”

Ancelotti appeared resigned to his fate when he addressed the media after Sunday’s match, which was decide by Jermaine Beckford’s senstaional solo-effort on 75 minutes.

“Maybe we will talk next week,” the Italian said. “Now the club has finished the season they can judge my job and they will take a decision in one week. I have to wait and see what happens.”

“I am now officially on holiday today but now I don’t know how long I will be on that holiday.”

“We would have liked to finish the season differently but unfortunately we didn’t have strong motivation today, even when we had one more player in the second half. We didn’t play well.”

“It’s normal at the end of the season. We have struggled for motivation since the defeat to Manchester United. We worked really hard but then we lost the fight for the title so to maintain motivation is difficult.”

Everton boss David Moyes, meanwhile, was delighted to end his season on a winning note and described Beckford’s goal as the stuff of dreams.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘Roy of the Rovers’ lives on doesn’t it?” Moyes said.

“It was the sort of thing you read about in magazines, get it in your own box, dribble past three players, get it up there, get a wee ricochet, ‘keeper just gets his hands on it you can’t tell if it’s going in and it just goes in off the post.”

“I thought it was a really good goal. I thought the whole performance epitomised Everton in a lot of ways today.”

“I thought we played well with 11, I thought we did well with 10.”