Chelsea's pursuit of Carlo Ancelotti as their new manager took a new twist yesterday when it emerged that the club are reluctant to recruit the Italian's trusted assistants, Mauro Tassotti and Filippo Galli.

The AC Milan manager remains Chelsea's first choice to take permanent charge in the summer, mainly as a result of the personal intervention of Roman Abramovich, the owner, but the club would prefer him to work alongside their existing coaching staff of Ray Wilkins and Paul Clement.

Tassotti, the former Milan and Italy defender, has worked under Ancelotti since he took charge at the San Siro eight years ago, while Galli, another former Italy defender who spent the bulk of his career at Milan, rejoined the club as a youth-team coach after his retirement in 2004 and was elevated to the first-team set-up at the start of last season.

Chelsea want to promote a greater degree of continuity at a training ground that has seen wholesale changes over the past few years. José Mourinho's Portuguese and Brazilian coaching staff left the club with him and were replaced by Steve Clarke and Henk ten Cate, both of whom departed from the club last year. They were replaced by Luiz Felipe Scolari's Brazilian contingent, who were sacked along with the former manager in February.

The club are fortunate to possess already an Italian-speaking coach in Wilkins and they have been impressed by the work done by the inexperienced Clement, the youth-team coach who was promoted to work with the first team by Guus Hiddink.

Ancelotti's position should become clearer after Sunday's Serie A meeting with Roma, with the Rossoneri needing one win from their remaining two matches to secure Champions League football next season. The prospect of him leaving the club appeared to increase after Marco van Basten was spotted dining in the city with Galli.

The former Milan striker, who was sacked as coach of Ajax earlier this month, chose to avoid the attentions of Italian journalists by escaping from a restaurant via a kitchen window.

“Something was said about the possibility of him coaching Milan, but we spoke mostly about his experiences at Ajax,” Galli said. “I don't know what will happen with Ancelotti. The only certain thing is that Carlo, as with all of us staff, has one year left on his contract with the club. It's difficult to decipher what will happen.

“From what Van Basten told us, at least until now he hadn't been contacted by the club. Why did he escape from the kitchen window? He's like that: he's shy, he didn't want to deal with the journalists and there was no other reason. The bill? We already decided that he wouldn't pay it.”

Chelsea confirmed yesterday that Michael Ballack will be available for the FA Cup Final against Everton on May 30 despite a request from the German Football Association that he travels for a friendly against China in Shanghai on May 29.

“As Germany's summer tour is not in the agreed international calendar he'll remain with the club until our season is finished,” a Chelsea spokesman said.

Ranieri sacked
Claudio Ranieri, the former Chelsea head coach, was sacked from his job as coach of Juventus yesterday. The Italian club installed their former defender, Ciro Ferrara, as his replacement.