Terrace Talk (Chelsea): Complacency could undermine our title challenge

I KNOW we can’t win every game. I know Everton are a decent side. I know we are still top of the league (just), but the loss at Goodison demonstrated a character weakness in the team which manifests itself exactly when we need to be show strength and resilience.

Drogba can talk all he likes about the dressing room ethos winning us the league this season, but until we sort out why we are so diabolical away from home it remains nothing but rhetoric.

United are masters at turning the screw at this point in the campaign – going down to 10 men and still dominating and getting something out of Villa speaks volumes about their title credentials. Chelsea’s loss against Everton makes the win over Arsenal almost worthless in all instances except local bragging rights. Six points from our last six away games is not league winning form – it is relegation form and if we continue in this vein we could find ourselves battling Arsenal for third!

It was a particularly frustrating game because we were so in control and had we not allowed ourselves to be complacent we would have won easily. Two individual errors by Terry they may have been, but it was standing off Everton after we had gone a goal up that invited the pressure that led to the errors. Going a goal up is not sufficient any more – we need to be three up before I feel safe and even then the unwelcome spectre of Kanu occasionally worms its way into my mind.

My gloom was complete when I heard of Ashley Cole’s injury – a player who has run Anelka close for our player of the year, and one of the very few who remembers how to swing a in a proper cross.

I’m also beginning to wonder about Ancelotti again. Has he simply been lucky up to now? Was it unreasonable of us to expect him to challenge for the title in his first year in the Premiership – have all our expectations been exaggerated because of the phenomenal success Mourinho bought us in his debut season? Looking at the other side of the argument – has Ancelotti actually done very well considering that he is new to this league, that none of the players were of his choosing and that he is still learning the language? I suppose that once you have success, patience often goes out the window and you expect success every year.

In my view he has made his mistakes – he seems loath to change things at times when it is glaringly obvious the system is not working. I also question his ability to motivate because often the team come out with little change in desire – but this may still be a symptom of his limited English. Perhaps we as supporters need to understand more of what it takes for a manager to establish himself and be more forgiving? That just isn’t going to happen is it?

Speaking of those who are unforgiving – I see the press this week have turned their attentions to putting a spanner in the private lives of Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole (again). They will not be happy until they have undermined every player who has even a remote hope of playing for England in the World Cup (except for Wayne Bridge of course – he’s the victim don’t you know).

The hypocrisy of some of these journalists is astounding. They will make good use of the free bar, gourmet food and excellent facilities at the various grounds, then they will invariably write poison pen missives with barely a passing paragraph to the actual football – then tell us it’s in the public interest to know Ferdinand allegedly cheated on his now wife on his stag night or that Cole sends lurid picture texts of himself to models. It’s not in my interest. I don’t want to know.

I want to get back to reading about the game – articles on aspects of the game I may not have thought of. To learn something from these reporters who have open access to some of the best players in the world. I want to be able to read open and honest interviews with footballers – not prose of totally predicable stock answers that their agents have prepared for them because otherwise it is likely the journalist will twist anything that can be distorted. Is that too much to ask?

I want to hate a player because he plays for our most bitter rivals, not because some red top told me to.

Wolves this weekend. Three points and nothing less will do.

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