SOCCER ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: CARLO ANCELOTTI will be in command of the Chelsea side tomorrow despite the death of his father, Giuseppe.
The manager is to return from Italy after the funeral this morning and join his players at the team hotel, but he has, in any case, been involved in the build-up to the match with Arsenal already. Ancelotti is expected to take his usual place in the dugout.
“He is football daft, he absolutely loves football, it’s his passion and he’ll want to be on the touchline on Sunday,” Ray Wilkins, Chelsea’s assistant manager, said. “His father wasn’t very well for the last couple of months so it’s been a huge weight, albeit in sad times, lifted off the whole family.
“I’ve been on the phone to him continuously over the past couple of days. The training he has left up to us, but we did one little piece that he required (yesterday morning). He will take charge on Sunday and select the side.”
While Marseille were overcome on Tuesday in the Champions League, Chelsea have been beaten in their two previous matches on the domestic front, against Newcastle United in the League Cup and Manchester City in the Premier League. The latter defeat carried more significance and Wilkins made no attempt to dismiss the 1-0 loss at Eastlands.
“Manchester City was exactly the same as last year,” he said. “We didn’t compete as well as we should have done in a physical sense, and that’s unlike us.”
Chelsea are hampered a little by injury. Frank Lampard’s recovery from a hernia operation has been interrupted by a slight groin strain. He, Yossi Benayoun and the long-term absentee Jose Bosingwa are all expected to be available after the international programme which fills the next two weeks.
Guardian Service
