James Lawton: He may lack swagger, but there's no doubt Ancelotti can hold his nerve

In the accounting of another season there must be a high place for Carlo Ancelotti. But where do we place him exactly? It is not so easy when a man comes in with such a pedigree – and such inherited strength.

After played-out Milan, Kaka-less and despairing of ever again seeing anything like the best of Ronaldinho, Chelsea must have seemed like the last word in a bristling football garrison.

No, Ancelotti is not the manager of the year, not even if he completes the formality of a league and cup double, because everyone knows that he came to Stamford Bridge for one specific purpose. His old Milan comrade Franco Baresi spelled it out early in the campaign, saying: "Carletto is at Chelsea for one reason – and I know he will do it."

It was to win the Champions League and complete what would have been a personal hat-trick and that he should have failed against, of all people, Jose Mourinho, was a blow of savage dimension. Yet if the great prize escaped him, and his patron Roman Abramovich now agonises over the possibility that the rejected Mourinho will compound the ultimate frustration of his years of ownership by ambushing Barcelona in the semi-finals and going on to win it all for Internazionale, there is something pretty huge to say about Ancelotti.

We can say at the very least that Carletto's Way in all other respects has been a classic example of how a football man should handle all the pressures of his often desperate, scuffling trade.

Indeed, if the League Managers' Association are casting about for another trophy to hand out they could come up with one which goes to the man who most sure-footedly avoids the timeless, oft-repeated sin of bringing the game into disrepute.

Beside the style of Ancelotti such senior statesman of the English game as Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, for all their other virtues, can sometimes seem like squabbling schoolboys.

It's true that he can appear leaden in reaction to the instant demand for ready-made controversy when confronted by post-game interrogation under the TV lights but off camera this is a man who surely understands that football is much like life in that today's broken limb can be tomorrow's source of strength.

He gave a rather stunning example of this early in the season when, after a brilliant start, Chelsea went charging off the rails at Wigan. "A bad game, a bad performance, yes, but you know when these things happen, as they always will, there is one thing you must never do. You must never make a drama of it. You must say, 'OK, we go away and we do better'."

Nor must you blame referees, a tendency of Ferguson which has already earned a mild rebuke from Ancelotti. You must always look at your own failings, the way you could have done better, and plainly this is advice he is prepared to offer to any of his Stamford Bridge superstars. He confesses: "What is difficult sometimes is to transmit emotions when I talk to the players. So one time I blurted, 'Oh, God! Sod off'."

No doubt the pain of defeat by Mourinho still runs deep. But if Ancelotti felt like telling his indignant owner to do what he once asked of his players, if he was further nettled by his conqueror's smug aside that it might be that Chelsea would never win the European crown – presumably on the grounds that if he couldn't do it in three attempts it was maybe beyond the bounds of human possibility – there was no hint of excessive emotional pressure.

He sighed – something he does with the accomplishment of a character in a Fellini movie – and said: "I know what the expectations are in this environment and of course it is normal for a manager to come under pressure with bad results. I have been in this job many years and I know what it is."

After so many years in the culture of Italian football, where players tend to see their calling as something more of a privilege, even a vocation, than many of their English contemporaries , he was probably less prepared for the anarchy surrounding the personal lives of such key players as John Terry and Ashley Cole. But in all cases of individual crisis, including the difficult recovery from injury of Joe Cole, Ancelotti's style was unfailingly practical. He also presided over the enormous growth in performance produced by Florent Malouda.

All this was despite some fevered speculation that Abramovich's outrage over the defeat by Internazionale might see Ancelotti following Mourinho, Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari through the back door. Perhaps the oligarch, though, is finally picking up some of the rudiments of owning a successful football club and putting his trust in a man who knows rather more about the game.

Ancelotti's presence is as impressive as it is understated. He doesn't swagger, but then men of great achievement have a decreasing need for such body language. Among his various marks of distinction, Ancelotti is one of only six football men to have won the European Cup both as a player and a coach, and in the former category his most uplifting moment was in the European Cup semi-final of 1989, when he took a pass from Ruud Gullit, went by two Real Madrid defenders and drove home one of five Milan goals.

It was the kind of hauteur expected of a team-mate of men such as Gullit, Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Frank Rijkaard and Marco van Basten. When you think of such a moment, you see just one counter-weight to the days when things do not go right – in Wigan on a bleak autumn day and then on a fraught night at Stamford Bridge, won by Mourinho, who never knew such personal satisfaction – and you cannot but savour a sharp bout of vindication.

Ancelotti didn't come to England to win the cup and league double but no doubt he will take it for what it is worth. At the very least, the achievement speaks of a man who knows how to keep his nerve – and his manners – under some of the heaviest pressure football can bring. It makes you think how much English football would benefit if a few of his rivals considered a stroll down Carletto's Way.

America demands nothing less than sackcloth and ashes

It is good that the fear that Tiger Woods might return to prolonged exile has been so swiftly dispelled by his decision to play in next week's Charlotte tournament.

Such a prompt comeback to PGA Tour action did not seem so likely in the face of certain evidence that America is demanding nothing less from him than a permanent wardrobe of sackcloth and ashes and a tongue as sweet as an angel at all points between the first tee and the locker room.

Many felt Woods let himself down when he complained that judgement had been excessive when he slipped, quite marginally in the circumstances it was felt here, from his resolve to behave impeccably on the course.

No doubt he found Augusta a gruelling experience. He wasn't the only one. Feeling the weight of American rectitude, unabated, for more than a week would have worn out a gallery of saints.

Time for Liverpool and Everton to find common ground

Now that Liverpool's dysfunctional ownership has done the right thing and officially put the club under the auctioneer's hammer, it is not a bad time to draw up a small wish list for a club whose disappearance from the front rank of competition this season has brought obvious impoverishment to the English game.

One job facing new owners would be to analyse the quality of the club's signings since the extraordinary, early success of Rafa Benitez.

They could then measure properly Benitez's claims that the reasons for a dreadful season were to be found almost entirely in the boardroom.

Probably far too bold, though, is that the chronic stadium problem might be resolved by a ground-sharing deal with Everton, who also need new premises. Absurd? Not if you ever watched either Milan or Internazionale at San Siro.