Source: Telegraph
uiz Felipe Scolari to read riot act at Chelsea
Echoing their manager, Scolari's teams have traditionally been fairly combative and the Brazilian was known to be furious with Chelsea's second-half surrender at Old Trafford, a point he will make to players at training this morning. Scolari has even delayed departure to Southend United for tomorrow's FA Cup third-round replay until the day of the game to work on his players' minds.[LNB]Chelsea's manager accepted his part in the team's post-interval problems at United. With Deco suffering a knock, Scolari sent on Nicolas Anelka, changing the team to 4-4-2, a move he knew would open up the centre. United duly poured through, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov adding to Nemanja Vidic's first-half header. Scolari also believes that Chelsea's deficiencies lie as much in his players' heads and hearts as any decisions made by him. [LNB]Working with a relatively small squad, in keeping with Roman Abramovich's prudence-driven demands, Scolari lacks the quality of understudies that his United counterpart, Sir Alex Ferguson, can call on. There is little competition for places at Chelsea, so Michael Ballack, Deco and Didier Drogba do not need to fear for their places. [LNB]All are respected internationals, for Germany, Portugal and the Ivory Coast respectively, but it is difficult to see what they contribute at times. London has enough statues. [LNB]As well as nurturing some mobility and passion into Ballack, Deco and Drogba, Scolari needs to reacquaint his defenders with the art of protecting their goal properly. In their last three games, Chelsea have conceded five goals from set-pieces. "I need to think and look at some set-plays, to show the players many things,'' Scolari said. [LNB]Chelsea's old defensive strength should resurface as John Terry rebuilds his famous central axis with Ricardo Carvalho, who has only just returned from injury. "We are conceding too many goals from set-pieces,'' Carvalho told Chelsea TV yesterday. "We have to mark our men and this time we didn't mark our men. Every game we find another player who was supposed to mark his man and doesn't. So we have to work for ourselves and think about it, and stick together for the next games.[LNB]"Our mistake was the corner [Vidic escaping to score] and we concede a goal in the last minute of the first half, and after that it was difficult to react. We can do much better and it is our responsibility as well. We have to improve and mark our men and play better than we are playing.''[LNB]Carvalho tried to rally the team. "In the beginning, things were good,'' said the Portuguese international. "We were playing well with the ball. In this moment [now] you have no pace, you are a little bit slow, but you have to steal the game. You have to say 'I have to run more than them and I have to fight'.''[LNB]If concentration, confidence, determination and a shortage of playing options bedevil Chelsea, their manager's honesty, unfortunately, can add to the image of uncertainty. Interviewed by Steve Wilson for BBC's Match of the Day 2, Scolari was frank about the many question-marks clinging to the team. "I don't know now what the answer is,'' he said. "I need to think about it.''[LNB]This has promoted "clueless'' headlines when Scolari was simply saying he required time to analyse the match properly. One clear issue he needs to tackle is Anelka. Rarely a contented soul when left out of the starting line-up, the Frenchman has been in to see Scolari in recent weeks over his demotion to the bench following Drogba's return. [LNB]Many Chelsea fans would like to see Scolari being more adventurous, pairing Anelka and Drogba in attack, although this would probably mean dropping Deco, perceived as enjoying favoured status under his former Portugal coach. [LNB]Anelka himself tried to sound upbeat yesterday. "The fans have been frustrated by our recent results, which is logical,'' said the striker. "As far as the players are concerned, we have not been happy with some of our games. The positive point is that we are still on course for the Treble. We understand it's going to be massively tough, but everything is possible.'' [LNB]
