Ancelotti: I will dump Cole and Terry if off-field antics affect performances

Chelsea's errant stars were last night warned by Carlo Ancelotti they will be dumped like Ronaldinho if their off-field behaviour starts to affect performance.

Ancelotti is adamant John Terry’s nightmare display at Everton was not related to the furore over his affair with Wayne Bridge’s former girlfriend.

But with injured Ashley Cole in the frame over more embarrassing claims, the Chelsea manager insisted he will come down hard on any players he feels are paying the price for their antics by pointing to his treatment of Ronaldinho last season.

The party-loving Brazilian ace was dumped by Ancelotti into the Milan wastelands last term after the Italian was infuriated by his lack of training ground dedication.

And while Ancelotti insisted none of his Chelsea players has gone down that path, he vowed to be equally tough as he had been with the South American if the situation deteriorated.

Ancelotti said: “When a player’s private life affects the professional life of the players, then it’s a problem for me.

“So if I see it happening, then I will act, for sure, as I did at Milan.

“If a player comes back to the training ground and he’s not focused or doesn’t work hard, I can use ’different ways’.

“But that’s not happening here. When they come here and are professional - and I have fantastically professional players - then I’m not involved in other things.”

Terry’s horror-show at Goodison suggested he was being affected by the revelations that saw him stripped of the England captaincy by Fabio Capello while the fall-out has seen a barrage of potentially-damaging headlines.

He will miss the FA Cup tie with Cardiff as he is in Dubai sorting out his problems with his wife.

But Ancelotti said: “I don’t think off-field things have affected our performances.

“Private things are private things. We are able to keep those things outside our training ground. I’m not worried about this. That didn’t affect us at Everton - we just played badly against Everton and deserved to lose.

“That was all it was and sometimes that happens. It was a very strong match against Arsenal and we didn’t recover in time. We didn’t have the possibility to play with the intensity again.

“I think that the players are professional and they know very well what their jobs are and what their behaviour should be. They know that.

“I don’t want to judge their behaviour off the pitch. I prefer to speak about football and their professional behaviour, their professional life.

“My players, when they finish here, are normal people. I don’t think my players are ’on the worse way’. They are in the right way. They’re focused and, together, they want to do their best. We’ve done a very good job until now and we want to do better if that’s possible until the end of the season.

“As for John, why shouldn’t he be in Dubai? I could have given him two or three days of recovery anyway. He’s played every game.

“We’ve done the same with Nicolas Anelka, who will not play against Cardiff but have a rest and two days off. It’s planned when a player is tired. When they’re not tired, they don’t need a rest.”