Former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri has backed fellow Italian Carlo Ancelotti to guide the club to Champions League glory, and says the new Blues boss can also compete with Sir Alex Ferguson on the domestic front.
With experience of the demands of Stamford Bridge, Ranieri knows well the high expectations which abound at the West London club.
Ancelotti arrives at Chelsea with the kind of calibre in the Champions League that Chelsea crave, having won it twice with Milan, and Ranieri has backed the 49-year-old to take The Blues one step further than their 2008 final defeat and claim the title.
"Ancelotti is a fantastic manager and a good choice for Chelsea,” said Ranieri, who himself took the club as far as the last four in the Champions League.
"He is one of the best managers in the world, right up there with Alex Ferguson, Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capello, Jose Mourinho and the rest.
"Now you have The Four Tenors in England because Ancelotti has joined Ferguson, Benitez and Wenger.
"And he will have as big a voice as any of the others in The Premier League.
"He has won a lot of trophies, including two Champions Leagues – and he can win the Champions League with Chelsea too.
"The club has come so close in recent years. There was John Terry's penalty miss in Moscow in last year's final, then the last-minute Barcelona goal in this year's semi-final second leg.
"All Carlo has to do is keep Chelsea in that top four or five clubs in Europe who can win it.
"After that, Chelsea just need a bit of luck – and Carlo is a lucky manager.
"That's partly why he can win Chelsea the Champions League – and the fans will love him."
Despite Ancelotti’s pedigree in Europe, his record of having claimed just a single Serie A title in his eight years at San Siro has been cause for consternation among some fans. Ranieri believes they will take him to their heart though and afford him time to settle.
"The Chelsea fans are fantastic and they will love Carlo Ancelotti,” said the ex-Juventus coach.
"They will realise that Carlo is at the start of a new experience and needs a little time.
"But he speaks some English already. When I arrived in London I didn't know any.
"Ray Wilkins helped me out at the beginning because he speaks Italian and he is there again to help out Ancelotti now.
"But Carlo already speaks a lot more English than I did when I arrived in London. And after a few weeks he will speak it even better than he does now.
"Besides, there is only one language in football."
And the fact that Chelsea have been through three different managers since Jose Mourinho’s departure in September 2007 will not bother Ancelotti says Ranieri.
"Ancelotti will not worry about that,” he added.
"He will go to work in his own way and stamp his own personality on the team and the club.
"He has a fantastic coach in Ray Wilkins, but the most important thing is the personality of the manager and Ancelotti has the right personality for Chelsea.
"Does he have as strong a personality as Ferguson? Yes.
"It will be a great title race next year between those Four Tenors. Carlo will be right there with the others, believe me."