Scolari Holds Fulham Debacle Inquest

Big Phil Scolari held a team meeting at Cobham this morning to analyse last weekend’s performance against Fulham at Craven Cottage when we contrived to throw away the three points in the dying minutes. The players returned to training today after a 1 day break.

'Before we went to training, we had a good team meeting,' said Scolari.

'Since Sunday I have had the chance to watch again the Fulham game and today with my players, we talked about all of that game before going out for a good training session. Now we begin to look ahead to my first FA Cup game, against Southend, a game we must be ready for like we are playing a team in first, second or third position in the Premier League.'

Training could take place on a perfect surface due to Cobham’s state-of-the –art under blanket pitch heating system although those that played the full 90 mins were instructed to work inside in the swimming pool. 

Alex and Florent Malouda did not train outside sue to hamstring injuries although youngsters Lee Sawyer and Jeffrey Bruma trained with the first team squad. 

It’s reassuring that this mini-inquest was held by Scolari and hopefully all were allowed to have their input at the meeting and that they ran out onto to the Cobham turf feeling more determined than ever to put things right during the forthcoming weeks matches.

  Meanwhile,

Frank Lampard has said that anyone who writes-off our title challenge will do so at their peril:

"There are three points in it at the top, so the situation hasn't changed that much, and we've got a very good squad of players,"

"The Fulham match was frustrating because of the manner we lost the points with the last-minute header. That was very disappointing and we should have won. But we will go to Manchester United [on 11 January] aiming to win the game.

"You only win titles with a never-say-die attitude in your team. That is what Chelsea are all about. We've had it for the last few years and we've still got it in there. At Fulham we showed an absolutely great reaction to going a goal down and, in the second half, came out and smothered them. They didn't really get out of their own half other than with the occasional long ball down the side. We dominated the game, so the attitude was there from all the lads. It was just frustrating to be done on a set piece in the last minute."

"We've got very poor results against the big teams so far this season, but we're still right in there amongst it,"

"There are two things to consider: you want to go to places like that and get results, and we're definitely capable of doing that. But also we need to get results against teams like Fulham. That is what the other teams up there do.

"If we can get real consistency going, a winning run of games which we're more than capable of – we did it last season and we did it numerous times over the last few years – we can go on and win the league, there is no doubt about that. I'm hungry to win league games and to win the title, believe me. But it will come down to consistency. Against Fulham, they scored their first goal from inside the six-yard box when we got too deep, and their ­second came when their geezer got a fairly free header in our box. It is a collective responsibility. We all have our jobs to do, and we all have to do them. That's why it was so frustrating to concede late on because we deserved to win that game in football terms."