An inevitable consequence of a spell of poor form or a season where expectations are not being met is the media’s take on the cause of the maladies.

Typically, the woes will be attributed to dressing room discontent and the notion that the manager has ‘lost’ his players, no longer commanding their respect.

True to form, this is currently the case with Andre Villas-Boas and Chelsea. The club’s worst season in any recent memory has fans and journalists alike scrambling to determine the reason things have gone so badly wrong.

Rightly or wrongly, many are led by the wordsmiths paid to deliver their ‘expert’ opinions to the masses on a daily basis and the knives are firmly out for the Blues’ ‘old guard’. ‘Player Power’ is once again in vogue as the explanation du jour.

Messrs Lampard, Terry, Cole, Drogba (and occasionally Cech) are personas non grata and, all being the wrong side of 30 in football terms, must be cast aside for the long-term good of the club.

Villas-Boas was hired for what he terms a ‘project’, an overhaul of an ageing and stale first-team squad and the implementation of an expressive, attractive style of football we’re told Roman Abramovich desperately craves.

There is no doubt that this needs to happen and inevitably will, but after another sorry night in a very sorry season, opinion remains split as to who is ultimately to blame; the players or the manager?

A simple answer is to suggest both are, and certainly blame must be apportioned appropriately with failures on every level on and off the field this season.

Yet the veteran contingent continue to be victimised amidst claims that Villas-Boas cannot truly begin to rebuild Chelsea until their excessive influence and ego is long gone and forgotten.

In Naples on Tuesday night, there were starts for Cech and Drogba but not for Cole and for Lampard, whilst captain Terry is set for an operation which will extend his absence to a rough total of three months.

Drogba has only just returned from international duty, whilst Lampard can hardly be called an ever-present under the new Portuguese manager, missing more games through ‘technical decisions’ than at any stage of his Chelsea career. The core of the team is, slowly, being dismantled, whether by design or by circumstance.

And what do we have to show for it? Fifth place, an FA Cup replay against a Championship club and an uphill battle to continue in the Champions League.

In a rain-sodden San Paolo Stadium, Chelsea capitulated with Villas-Boas’ tactics (not) being executed by Villas-Boas’ signings – Cahill, Meireles, Mata – and his regulars Luiz, Ivanovic, Bosingwa/Cole, Sturridge and Ramires.

It would be remarkably churlish to suggest that some amongst that group lack talent and whilst there are obvious names who have a bleak future at Stamford Bridge, make no mistake about it: this was the manager’s team playing the manager’s way.

There was no negative influence being exhibited by rogue agents on the pitch, and whatever their dressing room influence may be, morale can hardly be high after this most disappointing of campaigns anyway.

Italian journalists reported post-match that some Chelsea players were ignoring their manager’s instructions in the closing moments of the game. Having been bold, cavalier and even a little bit reckless earlier in the season, Villas-Boas has arguably become uncertain of himself, and whereas naivety may once have been an excuse, each passing game begs increasingly pertinent questions.

Why limit Ramires’ game by asking him to play horizontally rather than vertically? Why pair him in defensive midfield with Raul Meireles, who has consistently shown that he lacks positional awareness? Why not John Obi Mikel, Michael Essien or Oriol Romeu, players far more suited to doing the job required?

Why the persistence with players who are clearly not playing to the required standard? Why renege on your very obvious tactical philosophies mid-season after the first signs of trouble rather than press on with the change you so obviously want to make? Confusion now reigns, respect is being lost and your job is increasingly under threat.

This Chelsea team is better than its current state. International quality players not far removed from a domestic double achieved in record-breaking style now defend in kamikaze fashion, attack with stagnant predictability and have little in terms of confidence. Morale is shattered.

A transitional season can only be described as such if it is has a positive direction, else it’s a waste of a season. For the sake of stability it might be sensible to retain Villas-Boas and let him continue with his project, but for the sake of the club, maybe it’s not.

Leadership must be decisive, not uncertain. The only decisive behaviour we’ve seen this season has been from the very players who have been criticised and blamed for the decline. Meanwhile, the real leader appears as uncertain as at any point in his brief managerial career.

Big decisions lie ahead.

OK we have just had match day one and the idiots have already taken over the away section, well what few West Brom brought with them.

Just what do they think is going to happen when they boo the Chelsea England boys? Are the three lads in question going to turn to a lump of quivering jelly and end up playing badly, or are they going to stick two metaphorical fingers up at the twats and play out of their skins?

You would think they would learn from JTs display at Burnley away last season just after the News of the Screws brought out the revelations, that are still to be proved true as yet by the way, and JT just got on with the game and scored.

But no the idiots in the Shed End corner yesterday booed continually, and Ash had another brilliant game, making runs and put in delightful crosses. JT was imperious at the back and Frankie? Well he was just Frankie and ran midfield and scored a wonderful goal from an equally delightful pass from Ash.

So oppo fans everywhere take note booing just isn’t clever and it will not make Chelsea players play badly. It will just make them play better and the Chelsea fans get even more behind the team.

But somehow you just know that morons will still turn up and think it oh so clever to boo Chelsea and equally we Chels fans know that it wont make a blind bit of difference.

Up the Chels and let’s silence the boo boys (& girls).

Martin O’Neill isn’t shy of a moan, we all know that. This weekend’s diatribe is aimed at everyone’s favourite man; John Terry, meaning that O’Neill is already very late to an already oversubscribed party.

Yet it’s not the target of his outburst which has goaded a reaction out of me, but rather the nature of it, and the predictable reaction of the wider footballing public.

Apparently, Terry should be publicly apologising to Milner for jeopardising both his and England’s World Cup chances. You see, dear readers, everything goes out of the window in a World Cup year (or a European Championship year) when an England player is involved.

Sure, the tackle was bad, and you won’t find me defending it too vehemently, but let me make one thing perfectly clear. John Terry is a Chelsea footballer, and club comes before country, every single time. No exceptions.

It’s not even a question of who pays their wages. It’s more that for the vast majority of the year, the player represents his club side, and whilst donning those particular colours, should be doing everything within their power to ensure a victory for their team – even if that comes at the expense of a fellow international compatriot.

So when Henry Winter has the audacity to claim that Fabio Capello should be dressing down his former captain for merely carrying out club duties, it evokes a certain reaction.

I’m sure you’ll have noticed, maybe even first hand, the number of fans who’ll tell you today that Terry is a disgrace once again, and was being selfish in not putting his country first. Some of them are probably Manchester United fans.

Ask them how they felt when ITV news, amongst others, questioned whether rushing Wayne Rooney back for a Champions League tie would cost England their World Cup chances. You might find their hypocritical opinions subside a little.

If the year was 2009, or 2011, or any odd-numbered year, such accusations wouldn’t exist because there’s no international summer tournament. If such a tackle happens to a player who isn’t going to the World Cup, or who isn’t English, the headlines would read something completely different.

Unfortunately, in a country where the lowest footballing denominator often seems to represent the majority as far as football fans go, England rules above all. I’m sorry (I’m actually not), but you’re wrong.

A final thought for you – if John Terry is the victim of a tackle which inflicts serious injury over the coming weeks, what will say you then?

I think I already know the answer.

OK so Ancelotti has won a few titles in Serie A and he has also won the Champions League, as well as losing it after being three up against the Scouse Scum. He came to us in a blaze of publicity. But what has he achieved?

It comes to something when I agree with certain hacks who have said we should have walked the league this year with our squad, and the spirit, left to him by Guus, but somehow he has managed, or mis-managed, the squad to now be in a position where we’re chasing Man United again, with the resurgent Gooners in there as well despite us having won all three games against those teams.

Roman, if you believe the media, wants the Champions League (a subject for another rant) above all else and saw Carlo as the man to bring him that missing trophy but, after going out very early by our own recent standards, that faith has already been proved to be false.

From my own perspective I don’t see him as any kind of saviour I just see him as Ranieri Mk II, and let us not forget he didn’t win anything for four years. Where I sit in the MHU we are already in despair at his lack of nous to select the correct teams for the job, his ability change it early enough when his original selections muck it up, and his apparent lack of motivational skills in dealing with this squad of big names.

Point in case when the cameras panned round to him and Wilkins at Blackburn at the weekend they just sat there looking like they had run out of any ideas and, as it turned out, they had.

I return to where I started, Ancelotti’s successes have come from a league that cannot in any way be compared to the English Premier League. Serie A is soft and slow by comparison and to send teams out with a mentality of not losing will win nothing here. I would contend that he is the wrong man to manage Chelsea to domestic league titles which, no matter what Roman and Ancelotti think, is the number priority every season.

Of course it is all about opinions and you are at liberty to want to subscribe to the theory he should be given a chance to sort the squad out in the summer and build “his” team, but I would just say that he has two windows to do that and has changed nothing.

I do not have the confidence that he can do it. Please prove me wrong Carlo, and bring me the League and Cup double this season.

This isn’t a good start. I was determined that everything on this site was going to be about Chelsea, but something caught my beady eye this morning and I just had to let off a little steam.

I promise you it’s Chelsea related though, albeit somewhat tenuously and with a generous dollop of Blue.

Does anyone pay attention to what Sepp Blatter has to say about the state of football these days? I bet you do, because like so many retired football referees these days – I’ll save that gem for another day – he likes to make the news about himself, rather than the football.

Well, Sepp, the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak, but more on this later. In the meantime, let’s do a quick run-down of the controversy surrounding this bastion of the game we all love, shall we?

Blatter was elected to the presidency of Fifa in 1998, but it didn’t pass as smoothly as I’m sure he would have liked because his election was surrounded by allegations that no less than 20 leading figures in football had accepted a gift of $50,000 (in envelopes no less) to smooth the path of Blatter’s accession to the presidency ahead of the incumbent, Lennart Johansson, running, somewhat ironically with hindsight, as the ‘honesty’ candidate.

Naturally Johansson dared suggest that there should be an investigation, but with Blatter in place and the autocracy now complete, it was refused. These allegations, incidentally, were published in a book that Blatter tried to ban.

In 2002, on the eve of Blatter’s re-election, a report was handed to Fifa executive committee by the then general secretary, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, accusing Blatter of systematically mismanaging the football world’s governing body by deception, illegal payments, statute violation and ‘cronysim’ since becoming elected in 1998. Zen-Ruffinen gave Blatter a week to respond or the matter would be in the hands of the Swiss authorities.

No further investigation was carried out, and Blatter was re-elected in late May 2002, surrounded by further allegations of bribes, this time to the African members of the federation.

At the 2006 World Cup final, Blatter’s absence from the prize podium was noted and widely criticised by the world’s sporting media. At the time it was suggested he’d gone into a sulk because Italy won instead of France. Bless.

Since 2007 Blatter has consistently and regularly referred to the English Premier League, the most popular league in the world, as one of the major problems in football. Additionally, as if he wasn’t already power-crazed, he’s also tried to directly change EU employment law by introducing quotas on foreign players. Oh, and back in 2004, Blatter was responsible for the implementation of bookings for player who remove their shirts during goal celebrations.

Should we talk about the Gael Kakuta fiasco? No, probably not, we’ve embarrassed the man enough already. I’m looking forward to that one being thrown back in the face of Fifa, as it most surely will, because in the Court for Arbitration in Sport we have an independent adjudicator, and that’s just not the rules that Blatter likes to play by.

Oh, why not, just one more.

So what caught my eye? This month it’s emerged that a very lucrative ticketing contract for next year’s World Cup has been awarded to a company called MATCH Hospitality, a company partly owned by a Swiss-based marketing company, Infront Sports & Media. The president and CEO of said marketing company is one Phillipe Blatter, son of Sepp.

Okay, so why the rant? Simple really. The News of the World and the Daily Mail are carrying out a thinly veiled yet systematic attempt to remove John Terry from the captaincy of England in favour of Wayne Rooney, largely because they seem to think that Terry has such low moral standards he shouldn’t be leading the nation’s team into the biggest football competition in the world.

It was the Mail, among others, who raised questions about Blatter back in 2002 yet they let it drop so very quickly. I find it ironic that so much evidence, and I use that term in the form they’d like us to swallow every time we read about football players in their papers, is stacked up against one man, yet he continues to be the leader of world football with abandon.

Just for once, I’d like the newspapers in this country to get on the side of the fans and go after a man who claims that what he does is in the interest of the game, yet all evidence points to the contrary. The News of the World can stop door-stepping Harry Redknapp the way they have for the last few years, and the Mail can direct it’s bitter ire elsewhere. Wouldn’t that be nice?

We all know it’s not going to happen though, and Blatter and his aforementioned cronies will continue to rule the roost, regardless of how many chickens come home.