Shut up, Scolari!

[Madmax 9,219]

Drogba is a drama queen of the highest order and gets on my nerves as well, I wouldn't be surprised if what Scolari said is true. But what I'm more annoyed about, is him mouthing off to the press every few months about us. The guy's desperate to keep himself in the headlines now that he's returned to his country. Also notice how his 'revelations' coincide with us hitting good form. (Ah the beauty of siege mentality - thank you, Jose )

Interesting also is the fact that now he's retracting his claim about player power getting him the sack. I distinctly remember him blaming his exit on Ballack, Drogba and Cech.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I may be scrutinised for this, but I think there's some truth into what Scolari's saying. About player power anyway.

Drogba, on his best day, is the best striker in the world. There's not many who can really argue with this. But on a bad day, he's one of the worst (like TX said, curse & gift). It doesn't surprise me that Drogba was annoyed he couldn't reclaim his place & it wouldn't surprise me if he bitched about it. Fact is, in that season, Anelka finished the golden boot winner. Not just for us, but for the whole league! So for Drogba to demand his first choice status to be restored is quite a dumb decision to make. I'd rather have the in-form striker, scoring the goals, starting. Not the one who's not 100% & unhappy.

One of the things you've got to credit Scolari for is his refusal to play players unless they're 100%. He went on record to say he never did that & his training regimes were noted as difficult but he did it in the interest of increasing the player's careers. He thought long term - not short.

It's easy to criticise him 100% in hindsight. But not everything he did was totally wrong.

Absolutely. People on here (me included) heaped loads of praise on him. Hindsight makes us fickle indeed.

Some people are being very precious on here.

Scolari is entitled to his opinion. I think he is an excellent manager and the football we played at times under him is better than anything I'd ever seen previously. I didn't know my Chelsea could play like that.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Scolari is entitled to his opinion. I think he is an excellent manager and the football we played at times under him is better than anything I'd ever seen previously. I didn't know my Chelsea could play like that.

Yeah! The one thing we've got to remember is Chelsea was his first club job in a bloody long while. So from the first minute it was never going to be an easy task for the World Cup winning manager. We were off to a great start and then got into a rut, but when player-power took over, that was it for him. Maybe if Abramovich had backed him at that stage the dressing room would've come back to him.

There's no doubt we were in a sticky situation around the time of his departure & he is at fault for some of that. But people should remember, in those first few months, we were playing exciting football! In a way we'd never played under Mourinho. It's kind of like this season, if this was 2008, Carlo would've been sacked. Abramovich has learnt this is not the most viable option now, he has learned that if he'll support the manager, so will everyone else at the club.