Admittedly, the arrival of Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko won't harm Chelsea's prospects of winning a third championship in succession, but my gut feeling is that they were effectively signed by Roman Abramovich himself with the Champions League in mind. It's as if he's telling Mourinho to go and win the competition. No excuses.

Mourinho's problems are of course relative.

Would you rather be in charge of an immensely talented squad at Chelsea with the stresses and strains of selecting the team and of keeping all the players onside, or would you rather be Martin O'Neill whose main aim in his first 12 months will be to keep Aston Villa clear of the relegation zone?

But, if anything, Mourinho's balancing act will be more delicate than before. He has made noises about trimming the first team squad, however, the competition for places is still so fierce at the club that it will be near on impossible to persuade players that they haven't been dropped when the pack is shuffled.

It was no wonder last season that Ricardo Carvalho and Arjen Robben made their discontent public, and no wonder it's believed that both William Gallas and Wayne Bridge are unsettled at present. Equally, Damien Duff was determined to leave once Mourinho intimated that a first team place would be hard to come by.

I don't know the ins and the outs of Duff 's transfer, but if it is true that he could have gone to Liverpool, then I would find it hard to understand why he opted for Newcastle who routinely promise a great deal but hardly ever deliver anything. Frankly, for all his ability, I don't see Duff being able to change Newcastle's fortunes around.

Meanwhile, Mourinho has to decide who will start in midfield from Frank Lampard, Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, Ballack and Robben? And then Joe Cole will probably be back from injury in a month's time, so it's either an embarrassment of riches or a selection headache depending on how you look at it.

Shevchenko is that rare commodity, a natural goalscorer who has a high ratio of converting chances into goals, but he thrives on a partnership and I don't see him playing on his own up front. So if he partners Didier Drogba, then that also limits the midfield choices.

You always get the feeling from Mourinho that Lampard will be in his side no matter what, and it's hard to see Ballack warming the bench, yet the two are a similar type of midfielder. Ballack is more creative in that he makes goals for other players, but to get the best out of him, you would have to let him operate in a forward midfield position where he has opportunities to get in the box . . . a role which Lampard has been filling.

If Mourinho will need to be very astute in maintaining harmony at the club, it's not as