Ray Wilkins's unsettling departure

Chelsea retain the capacity to self-destruct. The narrow victory over Fulham last month appeared to have exorcised the sloppy defeat by Liverpool and had ensured a four-point lead again at the top of the table, yet straight after that win the club's hierarchy rejected stability and dismissed the assistant first-team coach, Ray Wilkins.

Whether Wilkins was integral to the champions' tactical preparations is open to question given that Ancelotti and Paul Clement are the team's main coaches. But his abrupt dismissal – he was informed by the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, at half-time of a reserve game at Cobham – removed a figure much liked by the players and served only to unsettle.

Why not allow Wilkins's contract to run to its conclusion? And if Roman Abramovich, the owner, deemed him surplus to requirements, why had he not been discarded last summer when the deed could have been done out of the limelight? The sacking lacked class and disturbed the . This was an unwelcome reminder of the tail end to the José Mourinho era at the club, when the Portuguese had resisted attempts to remove his No2, Steve Clarke.

Likewise the imposition of Michael Emenalo, the head of opposition scouting, as Wilkins's replacement invited comparisons to Avram Grant's appointment as director of football in 2007 and appeared to undermine Ancelotti at a time when he should still have been lauded for winning last season's Double. Manager and club have publicly claimed the significance of the episode was exaggerated, the PR clean-up in full swing. Regardless, it all felt unnecessary. The trauma was self-inflicted and the subsequent quibble over compensation undignified.

Lack of investment in signings

The summer's transfer policy had been about cost-cutting, the owner keen for Chelsea to be more self-sufficient and understandably intent on seeing a return on his investment in the academy. Joe Cole, Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti were released. Deco and Ricardo Carvalho were sold, along with numerous youngsters who were deemed not quite to have made the grade.

The only arrivals were Yossi Benayoun, a bit-part player at Liverpool, and Ramires, whose pursuit had apparently been driven from above and who would need time to settle into new surroundings, just as Yuri Zhirkov had 12 months earlier. This left the squad with a flimsy feel, the sense nagging that an opportunity to send out a message of intent, not least to the emerging nouveaux riches of Manchester City, had been missed.

Nothing better illustrates the recent shift in emphasis at Chelsea than their transfer policy, with the lavish spending of the early Abramovich era a thing of the past. Of the 25 names that could have been submitted to the Premier League in September, Chelsea proposed only 19, three of whom were goalkeepers. The management remained publicly bullish, pointing to the success enjoyed the previous season by the bulk of the squad and to the young talent emerging through the ranks, but maintaining standards would surely require the team's most inspirational players to remain fit and available.

Injuries to key personnel

The worst-case scenario for Ancelotti was to lose his senior players, the talismans who have hauled the side out of slumps in the past, but it has been those key players who have cluttered up the treatment room. Frank Lampard has not featured since August, his recovery from surgery on a hernia set back by a hamstring tendon injury and, subsequently, an adductor muscle strain. The team are not used to being without his metronomic 20-goal presence. "We've missed his goals and you can see we have had difficulty scoring from midfield recently," said the manager, though Lampard's absence was merely compounded as other seniors dropped like flies.

John Terry returns on Saturday with Chelsea having gleaned a solitary point from three games while he received treatment on a sciatic nerve problem. Alex, his right knee inflamed since the Liverpool defeat, has not been himself while awaiting arthroscopic surgery and will miss up to two months having had the joint flushed out. Didier Drogba has not scored a league goal since the first week in October having played despite being physically drained by the effects of a belatedly identified bout of malaria. Petr Cech aside, the spine of this side has been absent or off colour, leaving the defence leaky and the attack blunt.

"Everything has been wrong," Ancelotti said. "We went from scoring with 21% of our shots to 6%." For once the statistics are anything but deceptive.

The youngsters are not ready to step in

The injuries and transfer policy have placed an unfair emphasis on the youngsters. Frank Arnesen, when announcing his resignation last weekend, claimed his mission to develop players capable of playing a part in the first team had been fulfilled. The FA Youth Cup had been won for the first time in 49 years, with a generation of genuine talent emerging. There was the exciting young Frenchman Gaël Kakuta, the Dutch international Jeffrey Bruma, the marauding full-back Patrick van Aanholt and, above all, the classy midfield prospect Josh McEachran.

Each has shown promise and, in flashes, excelled. Yet none is ready to fill the void left by a Michael Essien, a Lampard or a Terry. [/b]Such talent was supposed to be drip-fed into the team. Necessity has forced Ancelotti to cram his bench with youngsters and, with his side suddenly sloppy and often left to chase games, it is to these youth-team graduates that the champions have turned for a spark. Such tactics may work at other levels in the Premier League but they are unrealistic if the aim is to maintain a title challenge.

Perversely, the threat exists that some of these young players are growing frustrated at a perceived lack of opportunities. Fabio Borini has been frozen out all year with contract talks at an impasse and Kakuta's deal expires in the summer, with Milan and Bayern Munich circling and spying a bargain.

Indiscipline and lack of focus

Ancelotti has bemoaned his side's lack of desire in recent games, [b]claiming the team were capable of doing better than they had in the absence of Terry and Lampard. Much of the focus was drawn by the inexplicably poor 3-0 home defeat by Sunderland but it is away from Stamford Bridge where Chelsea have been exposed more regularly.

They have conceded early goals in their past four away fixtures and recovered only once – at Blackburn – scoring only three times on their league travels since mid-September. Injuries have played their part but some of this side's wounds have been of their own making. Essien's goal beat Fulham but his reckless, two-footed lungetowards Clint Dempsey in stoppage-time was the true legacy of that victory. The Ghanaian provides so much of Chelsea's dynamism and, even if he was hampered by a slight toe problem, he was sorely missed against Sunderland, Birmingham and Newcastle and must now make amends.

"He knows he made a mistake and I'm sure he won't repeat it," Ancelotti said. "I've spoken to him about having more control, above all in the last minute of the game. We have missed his character and personality in midfield, just as we've missed Terry's at the back. Now we must move on and recover. My players recognise this as one of the most important parts of the season. I saw a fantastic reaction last year when we were in a bad moment. Now I want to see the same again." The revival must start now.

Good analysis
in summary, chelsea must spend in the coming transfer window. Ramires will need time to adapt, Benayoun is injury prone.
They should buy 1 worldclass centre forward, 1 playmaker and 1 defender to challenge for PL and champion's league trophies.

Secondly, they're going thru their bad time. ManU has, Liverpool already on the road to hell. Arsenal will still be top4 candidates. Manchester city must fight hard to take Tottenham's place.