Ancelotti will be under pressure straight away to turn Chelsea into Barcelona in blue shirts.. and time is not on his side.

Byline: MARTIN LIPTON 

CARLO ANCELOTTI begins the toughest job in football today knowing the price for failure will be brutal.

For all the promises that he will be afforded the time to adjust to the demands of English football, the reality of life under Roman Abramovich is very different.

Ancelotti has only to ask Claudio Ranieri, Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink about that.

But even before the Italian can begin tackling the mounting in-tray at Stamford Bridge, he has to address the one question all of his players are asking. Can Ancelotti prove Abramovich right and show he can do what was beyond the Special One - or is he merely an Italian version of Scolari? Ancelotti spent his first full day at Chelsea yesterday getting to know the club's backroom staff.

The real work starts this morning, however, when Ancelotti's grasp of English will be gauged at his official SW6 unveiling before he meets the majority of the Chelsea squad for the first time at the club's Cobham base.

As one of the few men to go public on what Abramovich REALLY thinks about Chelsea's profile and performances over the past few seasons, Ancelotti has already let more cats out of the bag than might have been wise.

We have long been given to understand that the Russian billionaire effectively craves Chelsea to become "Barcelona in blue shirts," playing not only the winning football that Mourinho brought, but also showing the expansive style of Catalonia's European champions.

But Ancelotti was the first to spell out the frustration Abramovich felt in May 2007, just a few days after sacking Grant.

In his recently-published autobiography, the former AC Milan coach revealed that Abramovich had told him he wants to win everything - but craves even more than that "I am looking for a team with a precise identity - like Manchester United, Liverpool, Milan, certainly not like my Chelsea," Abramovich is quoted as saying.

"Chelsea don't have a personality. I have the ambition of winning every competition in which my team takes part, a team that at the moment I don't recognize."

No wonder Ancelotti, after being appointed on June 1, immediately vowed to finally bring Abramovich the trophy he craves most of all, a first Champions League crown.

Yet he will have to do so with a squad which is essentially the same one he himself criticised for lacking genuine creativity and the sense of fantasy that the Russian owner wants.

Ancelotti wrote: "I told him 'President, your team is very physical, you have to put more quality in the middle of the pitch.'" Those words will have been noted by Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien, Joe Cole, Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda and Nicolas Anelka, the very same men who will have to deliver on that Ancelotti promise.

It makes for a potentially difficult first meeting at Cobham this afternoon, although skipper John Terry - whose own future is one of the issues that must be confronted over the next few days - will doubtless urge the troops to follow his calm example.

Manchester City are seemingly convinced that Terry wants to take up the unprecedented contract being dangled from Eastlands. Contract issues also cast a cloud over the positions of both the Coles, Drogba - still to sign and now entering his final year - and John Obi Mikel.

These are problems Ancelotti will need to sort out quickly.

So is the balance of the squad. So far, for all the promises that money would be available, Chelsea have spent the summer missing out on all their major targets.

David Villa, Carlos Tevez, Franck Ribery, Kaka and Pato have either already eluded them or seem certain to, and the arrivals of Daniel Sturridge and Ross Turnbull - soon to be augmented by Yuri Zhirkov - are unlikely to stir the pulse of fans.

Even Milan midfielder Andrea Pirlo, who knows Ancelotti better than anybody, seemingly prefers the prospect of Atletico Madrid to the Bridge.

Chelsea want rid of Ricardo Carvalho, Deco, and Andriy Shevchenko, but still have all three on the books, while there has been little interest in Paulo Ferreira or Salomon Kalou, both of whom are expendable.

It means Ancelotti has to get it right from minute one of day one. Any stumbles will become apparent.

If he thought working for Silvio Berlusconi was tough, he may be about to discover it was a comparative walk in the park.

ROMAN'S LEGION OF BLUES BOSSES

Claudio Ranieri: Sept 18 2000 - May 31 04, 199 games: W:107 D:46 L:46. Win %: 53.76% J

ose Mourinho: June 2 2004 - Sept 20 2007, 185 games: W:131 D:36 L:18. Win %: 70.81%

Avram Grant: Sept 20, 2007 - May 24 2008, 54 games: W:36 D:12 L:6. Win %: 66.67%

Luiz Felipe Scolari: July 1 2008 - Feb 9 2009, 36 games: W:20 D:11 L:5. Win %: 55.56%

Guus Hiddink: Feb 16 2009 - May 30 2009, 21 games: W:15 D:5 L:1. Win %: 71.43%

CAPTION(S):

MEET THE MANAGER Carlo Ancelotti unveiled at Stamford Bridge