There’s been plenty of questions raised when it comes to the relationship between Luiz Felipe Scolari and his players. We’re constantly hearing about ‘dressing room unrest’ and fall-outs between the Chelsea boss and his charges, whilst Scolari himself seems to have undergone a total temperament transplant from his former self, if his reaction on the touchline has been anything to go by.

However, both the players and the manager’s reactions to Frank Lampard’s winner against Stoke on Saturday flew totally in the face of all the speculation that had gone before. Luiz Felipe Scolari was the first person the Chelsea midfielder headed towards, quickly followed by his team-mates, as the clearly euphoric manager was mobbed in the sort of celebration more fitting a cup final than a league game against a side that’s spent the entire season in the bottom half of the table.

Having scored the winner responsible for the jubilant scenes, the stand-in skipper insisted the celebration shows how much the squad support the boss, stating “We are all behind him.  It is difficult when people keep trying to say things to split things up.  The manager first of all is a very good man and he has been a very successful manager for a long time.  Hopefully that success is going to come here. The last month has been difficult. We’re in a moment where we make one mistake in a game and we are punished every time.  We have had countless chances, but keepers are making amazing saves. It’s one of those moments. We can only get through them together, we are all in it together and I think it showed.”

Whilst on the change between our woeful show against United and the fight we put up against Stoke, Lampard says “At Man United we knew we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we should have done. We underperformed and everyone went to town on us. But you have to be big enough to handle things like that at Chelsea and as a group we showed a lot of spirit and with the celebrations at the end.  We deserved to win the game (Stoke). It was another day where we dominated but couldn’t score and they scored from one chance.  You got the bad feeling that we were going to drop points again, but it was a bit different. The character and team spirit we showed shone through in the end and we got what we deserved.”

I’ve got to say, watching the scenes at the end made me a lot happier about Chelsea than I’ve been in a while. Our fighting spirit has been one of our biggest threats to the opposition over the last few years whilst our lack of it has cost us this season. For whatever reason we’ve let our heads drop far too often and it’s been soul destroying stuff to watch at times.  Ironically enough though, with the manager’s job under threat it seems to have stirred something in the squad - slightly deja vu maybe but welcome nevertheless.

We’ve let ourselves slip into 3^rd place in the league already and in terms of the title, it’s completely out of our hands anyway. I’m not confident of our chances in the Champions League either but what I am confident of is that as long as the performance against Stoke wasn’t a one-off, then we can see out this season with a fight rather than a whimper.

Filed under: Rants