I’ve now had my fill of excuses for Scolari

WHAT must have Jose Mourinho thought, looking at the team which he moulded into warriors, capitulate in such a pathetic and sadly predictable manner?

We didn’t just lose to Manchester United on Sunday, we were outplayed, out-thought and outfought.

We were left wanting in every department and Scolari once again showed he is a man that stubbornly chooses not to learn from his mistakes.

How many consecutive games do we have to concede a headed goal from a cross before we put a man on the post? How many times does Deco have to produce an insipid, ineffective and cowardly performance before he is dropped? How any times have we to watch our team play like 11 strangers?

Two wins in eight games is relegation form and I cannot see a turnaround with this man in charge. Even things that we took for granted, seem to have deserted us — like player’s fitness.

As early as the hour mark, several of our players looked knackered — including Lampard, who could run all day and all night. Ballack and Bosingwa were left in the wake of 35-year-old Ryan Giggs and the sight of Joe Cole bent double trying to recover his breath after a mazy but relatively short run was typical and makes you wonder what they are doing in training.

I watched with my head in my hands as three blue players, head down, went for the same ball, colliding and ensuring that the ball went to United. The wings were devoid of Chelsea players and some of the others looked at a loss as to where they were meant to be playing. I counted one shot on target — and that was from Ashley Cole.

On this form, we will drop out of the top four and although I am not bothered about the Champions League, we could ill afford to be without the money now — especially as we are apparently trying to become fully credit crunch-compliant and go “self sufficient”.

Speaking of self sufficiency, how exactly are we supposed to do that when we evidently still have a myriad of hangers-on at this football club who seem to do little to nothing for exorbitant amounts of cash? What exactly has Frank Arnesen achieved since we had to pay an eight-figure compensation for him? What does Pini Zahavi do, bar cream off huge commissions at a time when we cannot afford them? In fact, why is he involved in transfers at all — isn’t that Kenyon’s job? Where is Kenyon these days anyway? And I ask again, what exactly does Ray Wilkins do?

The big talking point has been Benitez’s rant; now we all know what Rafa was trying to do, but he didn’t quite pull it off. It may not be right Rafa, but that is the order of things — accept it. If you are going to have a whinge about it, do it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, not like you are about to burst into tears as all you have succeeded in doing is making yourself a target and disclosing how much pressure you are obviously under.

I bet Southend fancy their chances this evening — and who can blame them? I bet even Ipswich are hoping it’s us that win the tie, so much has our star fallen. Where do we go now? Do we write off a couple of years and try and bring the youth players through and try and pick up cheap/free hungry players and try rebuild? Does that kind of philosophy even work any more or does it only guarantee us mid-table mediocrity at best?

And what of the manager? Is he a man promised players to fulfil his vision and let down? Is he a man out of his depth? Is he a man who has been out of club management too long? Does he stay or does he go? And if go is the choice, then who comes in?

What happened to the €30m in the transfer fund from the Robinho non-deal? What has happened to the Wayne Bridge money? There are more questions than answers — and questions that no one at the club seems to want to answer. There are lots of people trying to keep their heads below the parapet but there is growing unrest amongst the support. We deserve more than the half-baked excuses Scolari trots out pre and post-match these days. The players, including the captain should be facing the cameras and explaining the team’s lack of effort at the very least.

After all , they were all too quick to accept the plaudits when we were contenders.

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