Blues banking on Ballack experience
Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon believes Michael Ballack can help the Premiership champions move “onto the next level” as they bid for European glory.
The Blues won their second successive league title last season but once again fell short in their quest for Champions League success as Barcelona knocked them out in the knockout stages.
Germany captain Ballack, 29, has since been signed, while they also hope to lure Andriy Shevchenko – also 30 this year – from AC Milan.
And Kenyon believes adding such experience to Chelsea’s young side could be key to developing their success.
“It is about saying ‘how do you move this great team on?’ and a team that’s very young,” he told Chelsea TV.
“I’m very proud of our average age being 24. That’s great. But how do you move it onto the next level? Sometimes you do need that older player with a different type of experience.”
Kenyon admits winning the European Cup is high on the agenda – and says Chelsea have “the will and wherewithal” to succeed – but was keen to stress domestic dominance was most important.
“I’ve just come back from the Holy Grail of all cup competitions the Champions League final and that's definitely on the agenda, and has been, but we’ve seen how difficult it is to progress in there,” he said.
“It is clearly on the agenda of everybody at Chelsea to be in that final and hopefully pick the cup up.
“It is the Holy Grail for everybody. I think we’ve got the will, we’ve got the wherewithal, but it’s not ‘at any cost’.
“You can’t afford to bank everything on winning it, because it’s a cup competition and we’ve seen what impact the draw has on that and we don’t control that, so you’ve got to start from domestic competitions being really the important thing because it also gets you back into the Champions League for the season after.”
