Comment: Is Chelsea On The Precipice of Total Meltdown?

Charlie Klein

Just one loss is all it takes. The high flying Chelsea Football Club, the sexy pick in this year's Barclays Premier League title race, dropped out of the Champions League on Tuesday to Inter Milan 3-1 on aggregate.

Chelsea are two points behind leader Manchester United with a game in hand, but find themselves out of the premier club football tournament in the world. This is their earliest loss in the tournament in some time. Impatient ownership and expectant fans are not likely to tolerate such 'mediocrity' from one of the most expensive sides in world football. And why should they?

The loss at home to Inter Milan is particularly injurious for Chelsea fans. Watching their golden boy Jose Mourinho return to the Bridge for the first time since his controversial dismissal in 2007 and defeat them in tidy fashion had to make them wonder why Mourinho was ever fired in the first place.

It is not, for once, the manager who has the Russian oil tycoon to fear. Abramovich's aides commented to the Times of London that Ancelotti  has the owner's support for a comprehensive re-tool of the current Chelsea squad.

And such a re-tool is necessary at the Bridge. Of Ancelotti's usual starting XI,  only Branislav Ivanovic is in his late twenties, with almost every other player in his thirties. The youth movement at Chelsea has been an expensive one, but also one that has yet to reap any benefits.

Who should we expect to see exit Stamford Bridge this summer? I expect Deco, Hilario, Paulo Ferreira, and Ricardo Carvalho find new teams for next season. I would even offer that Chelsea ought to look to move John Terry, Nicolas Anelka, Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack and Joe Cole. They could probably fetch a lot for those players and have the ability to buy Franck Ribery and Sergio Aguero among others.

They have to change the culture around this team. It is one in which a cheater and overall immoral player is allowed to remain as captain, and one in which the players have too much autonomy. Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho can feel pleased as punch that he has loyal players like Samuel Eto'o and Wesley Sneijder to make it work on the pitch. And he can even sit back and eat custard cremes in front of the London media as he watches his former side slide further and further back into what they used to be pre-2003.

Clearly the current roster is more in awe of their former manager than their current one.