Soccer: Abramovich won’t be party to criticism

ROMAN ABRAMOVICH turned up at Chelsea’s Christmas party to tell his glittering array of stars he is 100% behind them as they bid to bounce back from successive defeats.

The Russian billionaire, whose £111million summer transfer spree transformed the Blues from Premiership pretenders to title contenders, wanted to show his support for the team after their first real blip of his reign.

Claudio Ranieri's men who have lost 2-1 twice in the last week, at home to Bolton in the Premiership and at Villa in the Carling Cup quarter-finals face West London rivals Fulham today.

Abramovich was at Villa Park to witness Chelsea's first consecutive defeats for 10 months and was the star guest at the festive knees-up at the club's Harlington training complex near Heathrow Airport.

Ranieri said: "Mr Abramovich is a nice person and showed his support. He understands teams cannot always win and that there are good and bad moments. He wanted to show he was close to the team at a bad moment."

Ranieri, who clearly appreciated his chairman's support, warned the players there will be no acceptable excuse if they suffer a third successive loss at Loftus Road.

"I don't want my players to think about excuses," he said. "There are no excuses as we have 22 champions in my squad.

"Sometimes in football, you have to wake up and I want to see if my team are awake tomorrow."

Thumping victories against Lazio and Newcastle, 4-0 and 5-0, sparked euphoria among Chelsea fans but the goals have since dried up, with the Stamford Bridge side mustering just eight in their last eight games.

Ranieri's men have fallen to third, two points off the Premiership summit, and the manager said: "This isn't a crisis, but it's not a good moment. I want to see my team move on step by step.

"After only getting one point against Leeds and losing against Bolton and Aston Villa, our reaction will show if we can take another step forward now."

Ranieri attempted to take the weight of expectation of his team today by claiming they have done better than he expected so far this season.

"It's not easy to put 10 new players straight into a squad and see them all link together.

"We can't have the consistency of Manchester United and Arsenal but we've started we'll, have a lot of confidence and must now continue.

"Fulham are sparkling. They are playing very well and I hope my players are aware how big this game is."

Chelsea's troublesome week on the pitch has been mirrored by events off it, with burglars raiding Stamford Bridge between Sunday lunchtime and Monday morning, stealing several laptops, including one reported to be owned by Abramovich.

Ranieri still has a selection of problems, and although Adrian Mutu is back from his ankle niggle, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is suspended and Claude Makelele is doubtful with a fever.