No home comforts for Stamford Bridge squatter

11 April 2012

Andre Villas-Boas likes to spend a good deal of every game squatting on his tail-feathers by the side of the pitch at Stamford Bridge, his knees tucked up towards his ears and his head cocked to one side.

Viewed from behind, it looks like he's either readying himself to do a star jump or to make his toilet in the bush. It's a motion my mother would describe by its Welsh vernacular of 'cwpi-ing down'. (My mother, for the record, has never made her toilet in the bush).

As a trademark, the AVB squat is kind of sweet. It has more charm to it than the Arsene Wenger aggressive heel-swivel or the Alex Ferguson exploding-face gum-mastication, for example. But if its performer is not careful, the AVB squat is soon going to have a rather unwanted, practical function. If things carry on as they are at Chelsea, then by the time December is out, Villas-Boas will be using his low body position to avoid the pelters coming from the crowd behind him in the East Stand.

"You're getting sacked in the morning," sang the Liverpool fans after Martin Kelly scored their second goal: a header that was buried while Chelsea's defence dithered obligingly.

As the Scouse hordes jeered, Villas-Boas, for once not crouching rump-to-heel on the turf, merely dropped his hands flat against his outer thighs in exasperation. It was the motion of a cartoon turkey, flapping its wings against its own plump carcass, aware suddenly of the dreadful inevitability of Christmas lunch.

Notwithstanding the fact that Chelsea sent out a young, Carling Cup sort of side last night, in which young players were thrown into action with only a smattering of senior heads to guide them, it was still another stinker of a home performance. This was Chelsea's second loss to Liverpool within 10 days and their fifth loss in their last nine matches.

Oriel Romeu aside, it was hard to pick a player who looked certain of his game. Frank Lampard looked stale. Fernando Torres looked wishy-washy. Romelu Lukaku, short of match-sharpness, moved around the field like a ride-on lawnmower. As usual, David Luiz approached the game like he was re-enacting Mel Gibson's Braveheart at the battle of Stirling Bridge. Collectively the team were not so much flat as flatlining.

"You can feel Stamford Bridge has become anxious about Chelsea playing at home," said Villas-Boas after the match. Anxious is one word for it. Neurotic is another. It's as though the great cloud of funk that was hanging over the Emirates Stadium in September has floated south west and is hosing down upon Stamford Bridge with merciless severity.

The only person who still affects serenity is Villas-Boas, again the epitome of reasoned calm when he dismissed the loss as a function of the club's approach to the Carling Cup and spelled out how he anticipated making up the 10 points by which Chelsea trail leaders Manchester City in the Premier League.

"For our [Premier League] challenge to be alive we must make the most out of our December fixtures," he said. Translated, that means that Chelsea must beat the teams placed first, third, fourth and eighth as well as winning a derby with Fulham on Boxing Day.

It's a hell of an ask and, for all Villas-Boas's suave, there's no getting away from the facts: if he doesn't shape up before we finish the chocolate in our advent calendars, then all he'll have for Christmas from his club's incomparably restless owner is a form marked 'P45'. You don't have to squat too far down to see that.

Where would that leave Chelsea? With Guus Hiddink in charge, obviously. And you wonder, given all that's gone before, whether Roman Abramovich might not fancy a £50million bid in January for Robin van Persie: a striker with a proven Premier League record, whose goals have endeared him to a rival but who is available for a silly price to anyone willing to shell out for a player at the peak of his career, albeit playing in a different system and without much room for actual improvement.

After all, it worked for Fernand actually, there's no need for this, is there?

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