Time for Big Phil to get tough as cracks showing

SO the equaliser was offside; and the same linesman called Kalou offside twice, wrongly, when he was through on goal; and we should have had a penalty.

This sort of injustice used to fire up our team, now it seems to instil panic and ensures that our game goes to pot. I won’t lie to you, I’m worried.

We played well in the first half and seemed totally in control; Lampard narrowly missed making it 2-0, 10 minutes after the break, and I foolishly thought that my feelings of doom had been completely unjustified. I should have known better.

There seems to have been a metamorphosis by the team and manager from the beginning of the season to where we find ourselves now. A rather worrying one. At the beginning of the season it seemed evident that the team and manager trusted and respected one another. After initial misgivings about Scolari’s lack of European club football, I was won over by his manner and confidence.

But all that seems to have changed. At last Friday’s press conference, he was almost pleading with the press to believe that his crack about returning to Brazil was a joke.

I think it was a joke, but the way he was so desperate for the various hacks to believe him smacked of having had a bit of a rollocking behind the scenes.

I also get the impression that the team are losing their trust in him and I can’t blame them, as his inability to change a game or make a telling substitution is beginning to grate now. Perhaps he is used to a more technically gifted team? But don’t even technically gifted teams have a plan B?

While I am on a Scolari downer, I may as well vent my spleen on all the ‘Wenger’s a good bloke’ crap. I just don’t think it’s necessary nor helpful — either give them hell or say nothing at all. Being a nice guy gets you nowhere — and it looks like Scolari is finally beginning to see that, as far as referees are concerned at least.

As much as we all think that referees do their best, they are human. They can be star struck, overwhelmed by a big occasion, simply make mistakes, etc.

How more alert and on the ball would they be knowing that the manager concerned is not the shrug your shoulders c’est la vie type — but the “hell hath no fury like a manager wronged rant about them in the press and to the FA type”?

Trying to love Drogba is like trying to love a puppy that continually craps on your carpet, and it seems from the crowd reaction last Tuesday in Bordeaux that he has relieved himself of a vindaloo on the Persian one time too many for the Chelsea faithful.

He was told where to go in no uncertain terms as he stomped off the field, failing to acknowledge the travelling blues, having completed 30 minutes of totally ineffectual football.

If I want to be particularly vindictive, I could also say that the goal was at least partially his fault. He was dispossessed easily, and having been embarrassed he proceeded to throw himself to the floor and roll around while the opposition took the ball and attacked — forcing the corner that led to the goal.

My patience is worn thin and his brilliant games are now too far and few between to overlook his long list of misdemeanours.

If it wasn’t for the lack of striking options we currently have, I would stick him in the stiffs for the foreseeable future and give him something to moan about.

But perhaps we have to put up and shut up as the rumours coming out of the Bank Of Roman are that we have to sell if we want to buy, which is worrying considering the size of our squad. Not only do we currently have a small and injury ravaged group, but we have an unbalanced one also — and unless we are going to sell one of our jewels, I can’t see us really raising enough capital to fund at least one winger if not two and another striker.

The most annoying thing about the way we lost to Arsenal, is not just the obvious, but the boost that it has given to our immediate rivals and those with delusions of grandeur — like this weekend’s opponents Bolton — we are just making things unnecessarily difficult for ourselves. We cannot allow ourselves to slip back to our pre-Mourinho days of being the nearly team — time for team and management alike to stand up and be counted.

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