10 reasons why Luiz Felipe Scolari had to go
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Chelsea sack Luiz Felipe Scolari: 10 reasons why he had to go
out.
1) He’d lost the fans
At the end of Saturday’s dismal 0-0 home draw with Hull – a game which the Blues should have lost – an unusually quiet Stamford Bridge crowd got very vocal. They booed and chanted "You don't know what you're doing” as two fans unfurled a ‘Scolari Out’ banner which also called for the return of Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke from West Ham. With characteristic understatement, Scolari’s understudy Ray Wilkins called it “a tad out of order”.2) He’d lost the dressing room too
Supporters were dismayed in December by claims that senior players had questioned Scolari’s substitutions in matches against West Ham and Arsenal. It was also alleged that John Terry and Frank Lampard had confronted the manager to ask for the intensity of training to be stepped up in a bid to return to the high-tempo football of the Jose Mourinho era. Some players privately grumbled about wanting a return to Jose Mourinho's rigid 4-4-2 system and moaned about the manager turning up late for training. The lack of respect ran both ways: Scolari simply didn’t seem bothered after a humiliating 3-0 reverse at Manchester United recently and his players echoed that with their resigned body language at Liverpool and against Hull in the games which sealed his fate.3) He turned Fortress Stamford Bridge into a fun day out for visitors
Not only did the Blues’ 86-game unbeaten home record go against Liverpool in October, but the Scolari era saw 16 Premier League points dropped at home out of a possible 39.
4) He got his tactics wrong
Scolari’s firm belief in the lone striker – either in a 4-5-1 or a 4-3-3 formation – meant Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka never got an extended run together. Moves from man-to-man to zonal marking and the late addition of Ricardo Quaresma were too-little-too-late acknowledgments of Chelsea’s killer flaws at set pieces and out wide.5) He struggled against the minnows
Home draws with Hull, Newcastle, Southend and Burnley – the latter made even worse by a 5-4 penalty defeat which knocked them out of the League Cup – would never have happened under Jose Mourinho. Neither would poor near-misses against Stoke and CFR Cluj.6) He struggled against the big boys too
For once, Anelka wasn’t just sulking when he moaned last week: 'From the start of the season, we've lost our tests against the biggest teams. Whenever the biggest matches in the Premier League come along, we have just not shown we know how to perform at the 'real' Chelsea level.'” So far Chelsea have just one point in total to show from two games apiece against Liverpool and Manchester United and a home match against Arsenal.
7) He put his faith in the wrong players
Scolari bought Deco on the back of a terrible season at Barcelona and persisted with him until recently despite the Portuguese midfielder’s evident struggles to keep up with the pace of the Premier League. He also kept Drogba out of the side in favour of Anelka – who might be the Premier League’s leading scorer but has only netted once in eight weeks… and that against Southend.
8) He’d stopped communicating with the fans
It’s bad enough when a manager stops attending pre- and post-match press conferences – even worse when in his stead he sends out human Valium Wilkins in his stead. Scolari’s struggles with the English language didn’t help him in his struggles to win over an increasingly frustrated Chelsea crowd.9) He’d turned into an unlucky manager
Major injuries to Michael Essien and Joe Cole and fitness problems for Didier Drogba, John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho – not to mention the farcical gazumping of Robinho by Manchester City after Chelsea had offered fans the chance to buy a shirt with his name on it - conspired to wreck Scolari’s hopes of continuing Chelsea’s flying start to the season. Roman Abramovich's reincarnation as a credit crunch Doug Ellis and subsequent reluctance to perform major surgery on an ageing team didn’t help either. If only Big Phil had endured this kind of misfortune against England in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and the 2004 European Championship.10) He wasn’t even as good as Avram Grant
His haul of only 49 points from 25 games is 15 worse than the 64 Jose Mourinho managed in his first season, 17 worse than Mourinho hauled in the following year as the title was won again – and five worse than the seemingly hapless Avram Grant got last year. Grant’s team scored 48 goals in those games – Scolari’s could only manage 44. -
number 9 is sad :(
number 10....i guess its more with the fixtures as well as teams? man city being bought over etc etc
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number 9 is sad :(
number 10....i guess its more with the fixtures as well as teams? man city being bought over etc etc
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Scolari's spokesman Acaz Fellegger believes it was owner Roman Abramovich's decision to get rid of the Brazilian coach.
Fellegger insists Scolari had the backing of Chelsea's players and the club's chief-executive Peter Kenyon and told Lance! newspaper's website: "It seems that Abramovich made the decision."
"He (Scolari) was not in a comfortable situation despite having the support of the squad and Peter Kenyon.
"The Chelsea squad are old. Felipe tried to rejuvenate it, but unsuccessfully. He asked (the board) to sign Deco and Robinho, but they only brought Deco."
Fellegger added that the the language barrier had not been an issue during his time at Stamford Bridge.
"The English language has never been an issue for him as he has given many interviews in English," he said.
Scolari himself issued a short statement on Fellegger's website, saying: "I wish luck to Chelsea in the three competitions they are involved in.
"I also take this opportunity to confirm that I will keep living in London and I will respond to the media soon." -
Divided dressing-room led to difficulties in the boardroom
Scolari lost the dressing-room after all.
For all the very real evidence of discontent that has filtered out from Chelsea’s inner sanctum in the past few months, it seems that Luiz Felipe Scolari’s crime was to lose the boardroom rather than the dressing-room. Many of Chelsea’s senior players were shocked and saddened when told of their manager’s departure after training with their international teams yesterday afternoon, with John Terry and Frank Lampard acting as the messengers of doom after they had been informed of the latest twist in the life of this most turbulent of clubs by a personal telephone call from Roman Abramovich, the owner.
Despite having reservations, Terry and Lampard felt that Scolari was capable of turning things around and should have been given more time, but, unfortunately for the Brazilian, such a view was not universally held by their team-mates — a worrying state of affairs that highlights his biggest failing at Stamford Bridge. Over the course of the past 18 months, the best team spirit in the Premier League, instilled by José Mourinho, has declined to such an alarming extent that several players have begun openly questioning the authority of the manager and the contributions of some of their colleagues.
It has not quite descended into a state of civil war, but even from the outside the tensions are obvious. In essence Chelsea’s players are divided in two, between those who play for the club and the fans, such as Terry and Lampard, and those who have developed the bad habit of playing for themselves.
In this context it is understood that several of the club’s foreign players have been to see senior boardroom figures in the past few weeks to complain about Scolari’s methods and are not displeased by his departure. While there is no suggestion that Abramovich bowed to this latest outbreak of player power, with the fear of failing to qualify for the Champions League the decisive factor behind his decision, such scheming does illustrate some of the problems that will face Scolari’s successor. There can be few dressing-rooms containing such a powerful cocktail of ego, earning power and sheer stubbornness as that at Chelsea.
Scolari is believed to have retained the backing of the majority of his players, although, crucially, their support was based largely on admiration for his qualities as a man rather than as a manager. The 60-year-old won the squad over with his affable personality and vision of free-flowing football last summer, but as the season has developed doubts began to emerge about his coaching capabilities.
In addition to the well-documented complaints regarding his training sessions — dismissed as lacking intensity and focus, with a series of five-a-sides taking precedence over proper skills work — Scolari’s tactical acumen was also questioned, particularly when it became clear that he struggled to alter the course of matches that were not going Chelsea’s way. Ultimately, he paid the price for failing to live up to the exacting standards set by Mourinho. Although he will not say so, especially with a £7.5 million payoff in the bag, Scolari is also understood to have felt let down by several of his players.
Lampard is the only one to have consistently produced his best form this season, with even hitherto reliable performers such as Petr Cech and Ricardo Carvalho suffering from a drop in form. Many of the players have been quick to blame the manager for the team’s travails rather than address their own shortcomings, but although this evasion of responsibility reflects badly on the individuals concerned, it does not do much for the reputation of the manager either.
By failing to keep them all engaged, focused and united, it appears that Scolari lost the dressing-room after all, even if they did not realise it at the time.
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constant chopping and axing is not going to get them anywhere. A word of fairness for Scolari...he inherited a team from Grant & Mourinho - didn't really have the funds and time to form his own team. in my opinion, he shld be given time to build, maybe one season and judge him the next. If he favors 4-3-3, he shld be given the resources to deploy his team - maybe not change the whole 11 but at least 3 or 5 players to form the core of the team.
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so where will he go next?
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Originally posted by red_amoeba:
constant chopping and axing is not going to get them anywhere.
A word of fairness for Scolari…he inherited a team from Grant & Mourinho – didn’t really have the funds and time to form his own team. in my opinion, he shld be given time to build, maybe one season and judge him the next.
If he favors 4-3-3, he shld be given the resources to deploy his team – maybe not change the whole 11 but at least 3 or 5 players to form the core of the team.
The team that he inherited is good enough to win the league. I think he got the tactic wrong and did not command a respect from the players. When Mourinho first came, he inherited Ranieiri's squad who finished 2nd and into CL semifinals but Mourinho bring the team 1 step forward on his first season in charge, unlike Scolari. BPL is different from other leagues, just look at Juande Ramos...he was on losing streak in BPL but his new team Real has been winning 7 times in a row now...
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lack of robinho and the 'trust' he put inside malouda got him fk by Roman
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ByeBye so who the replacement of him?
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Roman The Boss always wanted to see fluent attacking football ...Chelsea not delivering that to him ....
Main reason i saw .... not winning against minnows cost him .
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If i am Scholari , i happy ma .... good compensations !! 4 years contract .....
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inherited a team worthy of being champion may or may not means that the new guy can move it further forward, every manager is different as in their tactics, game plan, training and so on so on, say if someone is going to take over ManU this or next season, no one can be sure that the new guy is going to bring back the title for them, its all opinion kinda thingy here, the same group of players might be viewed differently by another person, just like how AW turn Herny into a striker when all his life was being deployed as a winger, or even Scholes, he was turn into a striker in of the season and managed to score quite a couple of goals but was pull back to AM position..
however, Solari kinda surprised me thou.. he is a pretty good manager IMHO, but then kinda run out of luck in Chelsea, with the leak of funding and the injuries of strong anchorman, doesn;t have a good winger to play 442, striker was firing.. and so on..
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Money wise, I don't think there was any problem there... If we are to get into money stuff then we just have to look at West Ham... Club owner going bankrupt, No money to buy players, must sell their top players some more and their current squad of players are not even at the level of Chelsea's... But he still get them fighting in every match. You can actually see the players are really trying in every game right till the last min... But I don't see that kind of action shown by Scolari's men...
Tactic wise, I think he got it wrong quite often too... And I felt he also didn't know how to handle Drogba... Drogba is a very soft guy for a big man... And if he had handle him well, Drogba will play his heart out as he is still a very good striker. Jose showed him a lot of care and concern, and Grant give him lots of respect but Scolari seem to treat him like just another player... And from the moment he tried to bring in Robinho, I think Drogba lost the will to play for Chelsea already...
I think this whole episode will finally take away the myth that you can put any Dick, Tom or Scolari and the players will still automatically continue to win... That's why I said many gave very little credit to what Grant did last season... Some even went as far to suggest Terry and Lampard was running the team... Or the players were "program" to win since the mourinho days so Grant wasn't doing anything... I hope they can see the difference now.
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_|_ Roman. He's the one who is screwing Chelsea.
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byebye scolari
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Originally posted by zocoss:
I think this whole episode will finally take away the myth that you can put any Dick, Tom or Scolari and the players will still automatically continue to win... That's why I said many gave very little credit to what Grant did last season... Some even went as far to suggest Terry and Lampard was running the team... Or the players were "program" to win since the mourinho days so Grant wasn't doing anything... I hope they can see the difference now.
if anything, this episode reveals why grant did not deserve credit for chelsea's better showing last season...he was indeed the tom, dick and harry who kept the bench warm....scolari did what he was tasked to do, add samba to the blues, unfortunately, this is not brazil. ..the 11 grant sent out, it's was that motor mouth's 11, the formation, also belonged to the mouth and so was the tactics and the so called 'intensive' training, and only because clark was there to continue things.. ...phil changed things but really he is all lungs with little organisation... chelsea will be looking to join the other london clubs at the mid table soon enough.... -
unsure whether this is mentioned..
one thing about scholari's training method is that in the past few years, he was managing national team so when he get these players, they are already fitness-tuned and in good match fitness so he can just use "light" training to fine-tune. but now in Chelsea, it apparently did not work. and worse, Steve Clarke left and he went to West Ham and immediately, we can see the impact he made there.
also, he put too much hope on getting Robinho and Deco's ability. Deco was already not performing in barca so to plug him and put him in a more physically challenging league was not going to work..
well, patience is no longer a virtue in modern era's EPL's owners..