Forward
Edinson Cavani celebrating after giving Napoli a 2-1 lead before
half-time and leaving Chelsea's players sprawled on the ground. Napoli
won the first-leg of the last 16 tie 3-1. The second leg will be on
March 14 at Stamford Bridge.
NAPLES: It is a fine line between bravery and
foolhardiness. Chelsea's Andre Villas-Boas tried to walk that line
against Napoli in the Champions League on Tuesday, and ended up
committing what seems like managerial suicide.
The damaging 1-3 defeat in the first-leg of the last 16 tie meant the Blues have gone five games without a win.
And left Villas-Boas having to explain why he
chose to omit Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and, most inexplicably,
Ashley Cole - three of his most experienced and most reliable players -
from the starting line-up.
'Whatever explanations I gave would be fantastic if we'd won but are now useless,' he said. 'But they were technical decisions.'
More believable is the theory that his team selection was a punishment to those who lack belief in him.
Villas-Boas held a clear-the-air meeting on
Sunday where he asked his players for honest opinions on their poor run
of form. Lampard and Essien were forthright in their views, but it was
Cole who spoke out most strongly, according to The Sun.
The England left-back, adding that he feels
'like a robot' given the tactical constraints imposed by Villas-Boas,
told his manager: 'I came here to win medals and trophies, but I'm never
going to do that with your tactics.'
Villas-Boas saw it as a personal attack, reacted and Chelsea paid the price.
It is hard to overstate how much difference
Essien or Lampard might have made - the former, a more natural
ball-winner, has not been as dominant since a serious knee injury last
season - but without them Chelsea looked alarmingly lightweight.
As it turned out, Cole was not on the sidelines for long.
The makeshift left-back Jose Bosingwa, whose
one touch of note had been to roll the ball under his foot and straight
out of play, pulled up clutching his hamstring only 12 minutes into the
game.
On came Cole, and he made a vital goal-line
clearance near the end to at least preserve Chelsea's slim chance of a
sensational comeback on March 14 at Stamford Bridge.
'We are not dead. It will not be easy for us
but I think we can do it,' added Juan Mata, the Spanish winger who gave
Chelsea a 1-0 lead on in the 27th minute, before watching his team
self-destruct defensively.
With captain and defensive anchor John Terry
out for at least six weeks because of knee surgery, Villas-Boas used a
midfield of Ramires and Raul Meireles to protect a back four of
Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, David Luiz and Bosingwa.
But Ramires, whose every tackle seemed to
result in a free kick, and Meireles seemed so busy following the ball
that they could not work out where danger was coming from.
And Luiz's reputation for errors was
strengthened, while Cahill was little or no better, leaving Chelsea
exposed to the counter-attacking verve of Napoli's Ezequiel Lavezzi and
Edinson Cavani.
'We made their job a little bit easier,' Cahill admitted.
Napoli's equaliser came when Lavezzi
embarrassed Meireles with a twitch of hips and sleight of foot to open
his path to goal. The second came when Cavani improvised, using his
shoulder to send the ball past Petr Cech, but not before the cross
bypassed Cahill and Luiz, with Ivanovic statuesque. The third saw
Lavezzi capitalise on hapless defending by Luiz.
When Lampard and Essien arrived with 20
minutes to try and mount a rescue, the damage was done, to the club and
Villas-Boas' credibility.
'It's obvious that Luiz has become a target
(for the media),' said the manager. 'But if he's linked to one goal
(that Chelsea conceded), he might not be linked to the other two.'
But that is the problem. You look around the
Chelsea squad and see players past their prime or younger alternatives
of lesser quality; and a 34-year-old manager searching vainly for
answers.
Only three teams have overturned a two-goal,
first-leg deficit since the Champions League format was introduced 20
years ago. Villas-Boas said: 'I want us to be the fourth.'
But will he still be in charge by then?
A club source has told The Telegraph it was
'75 per cent certain' that if a change was made, Chelsea would go for
former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez.