See, I’m running out of long faced Carlo Ancelotti images. Putting up a picture of a worried Ancelotti is my way of saying ‘he’s the man, catch him alive’. When you’re aiming at 4th place, you’ll get there or thereabouts such as 5th. And that’s worrying now.

Carlo said that we should try to reach the fourth place and a performance and a result like today is just a follow up from there. If Chelsea end up at 4th or 5th, I would not admire Carlo’s foresight or vision for having ‘predicted’ Chelsea’s position in February. Instead, I’d ask questions of him on why did he let that happen.

I just can’t explain what happened this season. We have a great squad – yes, great squad if you know how to use your resources. We have loads of experience and a lots of exciting young talent too. Now we’ve made a couple of fantastic signings too. And, we have a double champions league winner as our manager. You have an owner who still invests big in the club. What.is.the.issue?

Yes, the players are the ones that play on the pitch. It’s not the manager. So, if players take the blame for poor performances this season, who takes the credit for a historic double last season? When Chelsea won the double last season, for the first time in the 105 year old history, I gave most of the credit to Carlo. He did it. Chelsea scored a record number of goals – I give that credit to Carlo. I didn’t say that the players are the ones who played on the pitch. If players play as they should, you won’t have the managerial roles in football.

Managers are highly paid because they have a massive job to do. When Drogba plays like Drogba, Lampard plays like Lampard, Essien plays like Essien and so on, you may not quite need a manager. But the thing is, they always don’t play like they’re supposed to. In those circumstances, I refuse to put the blame on them and I’d ask questions of the manager. Torres is responsible for his performance. Malouda for his. Anelka for his. There’s only one man responsible for the team performance. There’s no other way to look at it. If you do, you’re grossly undermining the manager’s role.

We can talk at lengths about what went wrong today. The team selection, the tactics, the substitutions etc. I’m growing a little of tired of going to the details. For me, everything seems to boil down to one thing – Carlo is unable to get the right kind of performance from his team and consequently the results. We can look for a thousand excuses but they just don’t cut it. Players not playing well is an issue for one or two or three matches. If it goes for 4-5 months, I’d shift it from players to manager.

So what’s my point? It’s not about getting Carlo sacked or something. I’ve said it many times before – I want Carlo to continue as Chelsea manager for many seasons. But that’s not going to blind me. Carlo has the pedigree, ability and experience but he’s doing a bad job at the moment. That’s all I want to say. It’s not about injuries. It’s not about squad depth. It’s not about anything else. It’s about how well Carlo has marshalled his resources and how well he’s got the best of what he’s had.

As I mentioned in BC Shout, we don’t need a Carlo Ancelotti to get this Chelsea team a fourth place. This team, even without a manager would do decently well. The value of a manager for a team like Chelsea is in getting them to win the title or give a very good challenge for the title. I hope he has not jinxed us with the talk about fourth place. We are now in fifth place proper. No games on hand. No being tied on points. We are no.5 in the league and it doesn’t look very promising. I only hope that this form and mentality doesn’t get transferred to our champions league campaign.

Here’s the list of upcoming premier league games. Apart from the W teams, we can’t be confident of any results.

The worst case scenario is frightening. On the contrary, if we can rake in 10 wins out of these 12 matches, which has been done before by this very Chelsea squad, anything can happen. But I don’t think we are up for the fight. That’s very sad to see. I don’t think we want it so badly. We are settling for mediocrity in the name of pragmatism. Cut the euphemism there. There’s no pragamtism. There’s just mediocrity. Consistent mediocrity.

I’ve used the word ‘Carlo’ a dozen times in this post. That tells what I feel about the whole situation. In situations like this, the manager needs to stand up and take the blame for the past and the responsibility for the future. I’m not jumping into conclusions on our manager that won us the double. All I’m saying is, teams like Chelsea work on a minimum guarantee every season. The team not delivering the objective is one thing but if it can’t deliver the minimum guarantee, the spotlight will be on the manager. Don’t blame me for that.

I will salute Carlo Ancelotti if he could somehow conjure up to a third place finish this season. I’ve never had to long for a third place finish but here I am. Please.