DIDIER Drogba and Nicolas Anelka are grateful to Carlo Ancelotti.

The two strikers are thankful to their Chelsea manager for helping them fulfil their dream of playing together in attack. And the pairing has yielded 12 goals in the Premier League for the leaders so far this season.

The pair, in a recent interview with France Football, also criticised previous Chelsea bosses Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari for ignoring their requests to pair them together - even though Grant asked for Drogba's advice on Anelka before signing him.

And each of the forwards has insisted that the other brings out the best in him, with Anelka even comparing Drogba to Emile Heskey, his team-mate at Liverpool.

But it has taken nearly two years for them to be happily playing together as when Anelka signed, he was forced to compete with Drogba for a place in the side.

'Nicolas arrived a few weeks after Jose Mourinho left,' said Drogba. 'Avram Grant, who had just arrived, told us we were going to change our way of playing. I told myself, 'great, we will finally play with two up-front'.

'I was really looking forward to that, because I was starting to get tired playing alone up-front.

'When Grant asked me if Nicolas was the right choice, I said go for him. He probably didn't need my opinion but he signed him. What I didn't know was that he wanted to play one or the other, not the two of us together.

'We didn't really understand why we were not playing together. The rare times when we were together on the pitch, we tried to find each other but we couldn't really manage it as we lacked understanding. But rather than going to war against each other to get the starting spot in attack, we did everything to play together. We believed very strongly in that.'

Anelka backed up Drogba's view and claimed the pair approached Scolari to ask him to pick them together in attack. 'Even when Scolari was there, we kept asking for a chance to play together. Every time we were together, even for a few minutes, we tried to prove that we could work together. We really wanted to prove that.'

But it was only when Ancelotti arrived at Stamford Bridge this summer that the two men were finally handed starting places alongside each other.

Trust

'Ancelotti was the first to really trust our partnership in attack,' said Drogba. 'We didn't even have to convince him, he really wanted it. With him, only the rotation prevented us from playing all the time together. But we felt very quickly that our partnership would be part of the balance of the team.

'He is putting something in place at Chelsea and we are lucky to be a part of it.'

Anelka was always convinced that his partnership with Drogba would work, especially as his favourite position is playing behind a big striker. 'It's strange, because with strikers, you always feel straight away if it can click.

'Right from the start, I could imagine myself playing off Didier. I didn't come to Chelsea to score all the goals and be the star, rather to give him good balls so that he scores as many goals as possible.

'And you only have to look at Didier's game to realise that we can play together. He is a strong player who asks only for movement around him. I like to play with those kind of players. It reminds me of playing with Emile Heskey at Liverpool. I was never afraid to give him, or Michael Owen, good balls so that they could score. It is the same with Didier. You enjoy playing with these guys.

'And anyway, I am more at ease playing off the main striker. At Liverpool, I had this position. At Manchester City and Bolton, I was obviously the main striker. But I prefer to play behind the main striker, and always have done since the start of my career.'

It is something of a surprise that so few Premier League teams currently play with a strike-partnership. Of the top-half sides, only Sunderland and Tottenham play with a conventional two-man strike-force - and so Ancelotti deserves credit for pairing Drogba with Anelka.

Both men are now reaping the rewards, which goes some way to explaining Chelsea's lofty position at the top of the table.