Mourinho's task is to ditch the flops

Downstairs, Ranieri was being interrogated about why his big signings in the Abramovich era had failed to deliver. Jumping to their defence, he insisted again: "I think a lot of clubs have spent a lot of money and didn't get as far as where Chelsea have got to. I think the Roman money was spent very, very well."

But which of Roman's recruits, exactly, could be said to have been unqualified successes this season? Wayne Bridge, yes. Damien Duff, when he's been fit. And that's about it.

Look at those who've contributed most to Chelsea's rise this term. Frank Lampard, John Terry, William Gallas, Carlo Cudicini-Eidur Gudjohnsen; players who had been already on board and made up the backbone of last night's starting line-up.

You could argue that it is a measure of the impact of the new boys that, of the side which played so sweepingly well for 45 minutes last night and capitulated so lamely in the last half-hour, thus encapsulating the uneven feel of their whole season, only three were trusted with a starting role: Joe Cole, Bridge and Geremi.

What must Mourinho have made of some of the haphazard material he will inherit? Cole was as fitful and ultimately as disappointing as he's been all season. Ranieri doesn't seem sure how to deploy Scott Parker, an ineffective sub here, while Hernan Crespo just seemed disinterested during his late cameo role. It was a good job Juan Sebastian Veron wasn't on hand to under-perform in equally familiar fashion.

One day we may well find out whether Ranieri ever really did get the players he wanted this season. He got good ones, of course, but not the absolute best. The talk was of Vieri and Shevchenko and they got Crespo, who'd already looked like a player starting to come down the other side of the hill, and the frustratingly inconsistent Adrian Mutu. Claude Makelele has too often just not looked interested enough.

Everyone says Mourinho is cold and tough. Would he be hard enough to demand a significant clean-out of high-earning, low achievers this summer, starting with Veron and Crespo? It won't have escaped him that Mario Melchiot got found out badly by Jerome Rothen and that Jesper Gronkjaer gave us one Ronaldinho moment followed by rather more Ronald McDonald moments.

The other question is whether Abramovich is really going to be prepared to pay an outlandish £50m-£60m fee for, say, the real Ronaldinho or Ronaldo or Beckham, something which would represent the next massive statement of intent in the Chelsea revolution.

Could the inexperienced yet cocksure Mourinho handle this? "He's taken Porto to the final on a small budget so imagine him with Arsenal, Liverpool, or Chelsea, where he would have much more of a budget and more big-name players," striker Benni McCarthy said of his boss yesterday. "He would do wonders with those sorts of big teams."

Good, because if Mourinho gets the Chelsea job, nothing else but working wonders will now be deemed good enough.