Chelsea at the Crossroads, Part Two

Chelsea at the Crossroads, Part Two: Scolari's Fatal Flaw

The January transfer window presented Chelsea an opportunity to improve their squad and address the weakness plaguing it, but that was never on the cards. Prior to the window’s opening Peter Kenyon warned that Chelsea was unlikely to make any significant buys because players of the quality Chelsea seeks are either unavailable or cup-tied in January. Fans’ hopes that this was merely a smokescreen were not fulfilled. Indeed, Chelsea proved a selling club in the window. Substitute left back Wayne Bridge was moved to Manchester City for a reported 12 million pounds and long-serving second choice goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini was allowed to join Tottenham on a free transfer. Chelsea’s only incoming players were Turkish teenage prospect Gokhan Tore, Inter Milan flop Ricardo Quaresma, and 21 year-old defender Michael Mancienne, who returned from a loan spell with Championship front-runners Wolves. Quaresma would immediately get his chance to make an impression as Scolari, who managed him with the Portuguese national team, installed him in the starting XI against Hull City. Hull City, like Chelsea, ran out to a blazing start but of late the wheels have come off somewhat for the Tigers. Conceding goals, with alarming regularity, Hull seemed the ideal opponent against whom to revive the Blues’ flagging attack. However, Chelsea once again played lethargically and unimaginatively.

Quaresma, like Chelsea’s other wingers, proved uninterested in challenging defenders by driving to the byline and thus failed to add a needed dimension to the offense. Chelsea dominated possession but largely failed to create legitimate scoring chances. With the Blues desperately needing all 3 points to keep pace with Aston Villa and maintain distance over Arsenal, they instead limped to 0-0 home draw that arguably flattered them, for it was Hull who had perhaps produced the best chances. It was a game the caught Scolari out and marked him as stubborn and unimaginative. While Scolari had complained that his squad was too bureaucratic, he ultimately proved equally bankrupt of invention.

When Chelsea, at Roman Abramovich’s order, sacked Scolari, the move was largely greeted by surprise. The papers openly questioned the wisdom of sacking a manager after only 7 months on the job. Had not Scolari been hailed as a great success in the glow of his September returns, they asked? Frequently, it was pointed out that Scolari had not been given the resources in both money and talent that perhaps he had bargained for. On this reasoning, the sacking seemed the rash decision of impatient ownership who were reacting to a mere month’s worth of poor results. In fact, the poor results stretched back deep into the fall. Viewed in the lens of hindsight, it is apparent that Chelesa’s struggles were long evident and that Scolari’s termination was the logical and necessary conclusion to his uneven tenure.

The home match against Stoke City on January 17 provides perhaps the best example of the errors of Scolari’s ways. Stoke, like Hull City, is only freshly promoted to the Premier League. While Stoke has had considerable success inside the friendly confines of their home ground, the Brittania Stadium, they have struggled mightily on the road. Furthermore, they are heavily reliant on Rory DeLap’s long throws for consistent scoring opportunities. Having already beat the Potters 2-0 at the Brittania, Chelsea seemed sure to make light work of them at Stamford Bridge. That was not the case.

From the very beginning, Stoke gave the Blues fits. An early Rory DeLap throw was headed straight into the air by Alex who was fortunate that no Stoke player could get on the end of it. Petr Cech then failed to reach the ensuing corner kick providing another scare. Ultimately, Chelsea settled in and began to dominate the contest but a packed Stoke defense prevented the Londoners from claiming the lead they perhaps deserved. Scolari chose not to change tactics at halftime and it was the visiting Potters who netted first after the break. A Stoke counter-attack caught the Chelsea defense napping and DeLap coolly slotted by a helpless Petr Cech. With just minutes left, all seemed lost when suddenly Juliano Belletti headed in from point-blank range in the 88th minute to give Chelsea a lifeline. Then, in the dying seconds Frank Lampard, wearing the captain’s armband with John Terry a late injury scratch, lashed a 20 yard screamer into the top left corner of Thomas Sorenson’s goal to claim an unlikely win. Lampard, almost giddy with excitement, ran over and mobbed the embattled Scolari in a very public show of solidarity.

Lost in the thrill of victory was the truth of what won the day for Chelsea. While veterans Belletti and Lampard netted the crucial goals, it was the youthful vigor of two of Chelsea’s substitutes that put them in the position to do so. Little-used 19 year old Argentinean striker Franco di Santo headed across goal to set up an easy flick home for Belletti on the first goal. On the second goal, it was another 19 year old, Slovakian winger Miroslav Stoch, who made the key play in just his second first-team appearance. Stoch’s beautifully weighted cross led to the maelstrom from which Frank Lampard’s stunning winner ultimately emerged. Scolari, however, seemed not to recognize the contributions that the two young attackers made to the victory and neither of them saw an increase in pitch time subsequently.

Put in a nearly identical situation against Hull, Scolari left di Santo and Stoch on the bench and instead used his substitutes on the typically defense-minded Belletti, the chronically disinterested Drogba, and lackluster Deco. The Stoke victory should have been a turning point for Scolari’s Chelsea. It should have been the day on which Scolari discovered that his young prospects were ready to play a major role in Chelsea’s campaign. Instead, Scolari learned nothing and stuck to using the same players in the same system. How can Scolari honestly criticize his squad when he refused to use his youngest, hungriest players?

Ray Wilkins’ management of the team at Watford last Saturday further made a mockery of Scolari’s claims. Scolari steadfastly refused to pair strikers Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba. Wilkins, on the other hand, did just that against the Hornets. Drogba responded with perhaps his best effort of this season. In the early going, Drogba linked up with Anelka beautifully only to see the Frenchman unluckily hit the outside of the post with his shot. Still, Watford scored the first goal with Tamas Priskin’s delicate chip over the offside trap. It was an unfortunate for development for the Blues, who utterly dominated the game and surely deserved to be comfortably ahead long before Priskin’s 69th minute effort. Wilkins, unlike Scolari, responded with a deft tactical change. Holding midfielder John Obi Mikel was replaced with Stoch as Chelsea shifted to a 4-4-2 with Anelka and Drogba up top. The change paid immediate dividends. Anelka bagged goals in the 75th and 77th minutes to give the Blues the lead that they would not relinquish. At once, Wilkins shattered two of Scolari’s adamant beliefs. Not only could Anelka and Drogba play together but they could also do so in a 4-4-2, which Scolari refused to play.

Ultimately, it was not merely a bad run of form that doomed Luis Felipe Scolari’s tenure at Stamford Bridge. It was his inflexibility and refusal to try new tactics and play young players that proved his undoing. These characteristics made it abundantly clear that Chelsea would not come out of its winter slumber under Scolari’s watch. With crucial fixtures against Watford in the FA Cup, Aston Villa in the Premier League, and Juventus in the Champions’ League on the horizon, Roman Abramovich realized that if he was to save his season it was now or never. For a club struggling to slowly attain self-sufficiency, missing the financial windfall of the Champions’ League is a nightmare scenario. That is the scenario that was staring Abramovich in the face as he viewed a fixture list with Aston Villa and Arsenal away still to come and an unresponsive, unimaginative manager. Given the circumstances, Abramovich had no choice but to sack Scolari in an attempt to save his team’s season.