Ancelotti won’t guarantee any player a place in first eleven

LONDON - Chelsea manager Carlos Ancelotti said that he wants to drift away from the culture of favourites and won’t guarantee any player a place in the starting line-up.

Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho listed nine players — Michael Essien, Claude Makelele, Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Petr Cech — saying that they were undroppable in the starting line-up.

But Ancelotti doesn’t want to go by that philosophy.

“I don’t want to choose my first team. I think Chelsea is a great team because it has 25 great players, and for me it is impossible to choose the first team. It may be I never want to choose. I want 25 players that can play well for Chelsea,” Ancelotti was quoted as saying by The Guardian, ahead of his first match against Seattle Sounders.

Even his predecessors, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink, never tinkered with the starting line-up and picked relatively settled sides since Mourinho’s departure from Stamford Bridge in 2007.

Ancelotti said that he had been surprised with the level of professionalism and drive within the squad.

“Most important I found a very good team with quality, and a very good mental attitude to the job. They work and concentrate very hard. I like (this) and, for me, it is a surprise because I didn’t think to find this situation. I am very happy for this because teamwork is the most important thing to win. The training is very hard, different to Italy. Here the players run very hard and this is also a surprise for me,” the Italian said.