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It has reached the point at Chelsea where every time they get a bad result in the Champions League you wonder if the manager might have to pay for it with his job. It is hardly the basis upon which to run a harmonious, settled club.

Carlo Ancelotti will not win the Champions League in his first season but to dispense with him immediately would be to make a mockery of Roman Abramovich’s attempts to instil some kind of stability into this most volatile of the big-four clubs. Sometimes teams lose games: it is a simple straightforward point but one that Chelsea have struggled to accept in the past. @Independent

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Just when it seemed things could not get any worse for John Terry, the disgraced former England captain has found a novel way to land himself in trouble. Terry has already been stripped of the England captaincy in World Cup year over an extramarital affair with a lingerie model and last night he was part of the Chelsea team eliminated from the Champions League at the hands of his former mentor José Mourinho.

But as if that were not bad enough, Terry was then questioned and breathalysed by police in the small hours after accidentally running over a Chelsea steward as he left Stamford Bridge.

Terry, 29, inadvertently hit the steward, Steve Rowley, as he pulled away from the stadium in his Range Rover after the 1-0 defeat to Mourinho’s Internazionale. Terry and his wife Toni, alongside him in the passenger’s seat, were oblivious to the accident until he was contacted by the club on returning home to Oxshott, Surrey. @Guardian

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Liverpool’s American owners are under more financial pressure to settle their debts than has previously been thought, with the New York-based company bidding to take control of the club imposing a three-week deadline to take or leave their offer.

The Rhone Group’s proposed £100m investment for a 40 per cent share would enable the Liverpool chief executive, Christian Purslow, to deliver the entire sum to the Royal Bank of Scotland, the club’s bankers, to pay down £100m of debt as the bank has demanded. But the time pressures the club currently faces are also compounded by the fact that Liverpool appear to have just 20 days to deliver some of that £100m figure to the bank. The presumption has always been that the deadline is July, by which time the club’s current debt facility expires and must be renegotiated. @Independent

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Stuttgart coach Christian Gross has declared that the elimination of Real Madrid from the UEFA Champions League served to motivate Barcelona, who sent his side out of the competition with a four goal demolition at Camp Nou.

Gross also stated that his side lacked the courage they showed in the first leg as a brace from Lionel Messi and one a piece from Pedro and Bojan Krkic completed the rout.

“We lacked the courage we had three weeks ago in Stuttgart,. A better defensive performance may have neutralized the midfield and allowed us to match them for goal chances,” he told a press conference. @Goal

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Manchester United are giving strong consideration to increasing season-ticket prices to help with the club’s enormous interest payments, despite being acutely aware such a move would increase the sense of animosity that has led to fans protesting against the ruling Glazer family.

The Glazers have begun discussions with the club’s England-based directors about next season’s prices, with an official announcement due in the next month, and the early talks have been geared towards United continuing their habit of making supporters pay more every year since the Americans took control in 2005.

Season tickets have gone up by an average of 48% in that time, and by as much as 69% in some areas of Old Trafford, but the Glazers are said to be largely unmoved by the prospect of further antagonising the supporters, placing more emphasis on how to increase match-day revenue at a time when the club have £700m-plus worth of borrowings and paid £67m in interest payments last year. @Guardian

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Rafa Benitez’s demands for a show of loyalty from his players were thrown back in his face by Albert Riera.

The Liverpool boss hailed a show of loyalty from goalkeeper Pepe Reina yesterday and called for others to follow suit and put an end to any suggestions of dressing-room unrest.

But his rallying call, on the eve of tonight’s Europa League last-16 return leg with Lille at Anfield, was ignored by out-of-favour winger Riera, who called Benitez’s credentials as a manager into question, saying: ‘We have never played nice football. It has been effective, yes, but we have not played brilliantly. @Dailymail

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Aaron Lennon is to give Tottenham and England a lift by returning to light training next week. He hopes to be available for Spurs’ clash with Chelsea on April 17.

Spurs boss Harry Redknapp had previously admitted Lennon was ‘quite a way off’ being fit with the start of the World Cup now less than three months away.

Lennon suffered an injury setback last month, having already been sidelined for two months after suffering tears in his groin muscles.

Redknapp, however, is hoping he will play again for Spurs before the end of the season. @Dailymail

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Liverpool fans have witnessed too many false dawns to harbour illusions about the latest possible saviours to be linked to their football club, but they can perhaps be forgiven that there is some serious money around this time. Rhone Group’s senior partners include Robert Agostinelli, whose ex-wife Mathilde is a senior executive at Prada. He is an acquaintance of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and has spoken with deference about Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. Both Agostinelli and Steve Langman, another partner at Rhone, have invested in the Republican presidential campaigns of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.

But the new names issuing around the environs of L4 are actually in a different bracket to many of those that have been sounded before. These two are no billionaires and certainly not in the same stratosphere as those – from Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to Indians Mukesh Ambani and Subrata Roy – who have been linked with the club before in these turbulent past few years. @Independent

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It is a measure of Aston Villa’s understated progress this season, therefore, that O’Neill has, for the most part, been able to get away with avoiding the issue. Remarkable, really, considering that his side are in a far stronger position than they were last season, when expectations exploded.

True, last season Villa maintained a spot in the top five for the majority of the season – only sliding to six at the end – while they are currently seventh, but a glance at the league table this morning shows Villa just three points from the top four.

With 49 points, Villa are one point behind Manchester City, three behind fourth-placed Tottenham, who have 52 points, but like City they have two games in hand on Liverpool, who have 51 points, and one game over Spurs. @Telegraph

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The details have yet to be worked out, as it has not come to that point yet, but if the players in MLS strike, Landon Donovan could return to play with Everton, where he was recently on loan for ten weeks.

In a press conference in Los Angeles today, Donovan spoke with fondness of his time at the Merseyside club.

“It was a little bittersweet to leave, but the reality was that the agreement all along was for me to be there until March 15,” Donovan said. “Obviously, you get caught up in what is going on and it’s fun and exciting to be a part of what I was just a part of . You can’t mirror that in any way, you can’t duplicate that, but the reality is that I’m very excited to be home.  If fate comes around again and I’m meant to go back there, then I’ll go back there @Goal

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