The Sunday Times
October 19, 2008
Chelsea crush MiddlesbroughChelsea 5 Middlesbrough 0
David Walsh at Riverside
FOOTBALL x-rays a man’s soul, examines him in a way that seldom happens in normal life, and when Middlesbrough’s players, coaches and manager reflect on this pale imitation of a football match, they will wonder what in the world they were doing. Before an expectant home crowd, against a Chelsea side without seven frontline players, it wasn’t that Boro were slaughtered by superior opponents but that they played like dead sheep.
Nothing became the nature of the match as much as slow deceleration down to the 90th minute. Chelsea’s travelling support chanted “We want six” but it was half-hearted and, by then, their team were whiling the minutes away with strings of pretty but purposeless passing. Why hurt Boro any more? By then most of the home fans had left the stadium and Boro’s resistance, not nearly fierce enough in the first place, had withered completely.
Gareth Southgate spent some time in the changing room with his team after the game. What do you say to young players who have been brutally outplayed? Can you criticise a man for not having as much talent as his opponent? And how do you see the positives when there aren’t any? Most of all, how can you make sense of a performance when the 5-0 scoreline barely tells the story of how awful it was?
“I told them they had to leave here hurting because our fans have left hurting,” said Southgate. “Physically, fitness-wise, tactically, they were better than us and these are some of the things I have to look at. We looked like we were caught in the headlights and have to talk about why that happened. But it was a humiliation. And when you lose like that, it is a very humbling experience. I don’t think they had to be at their best and yet they annihilated us.”
Because Chelsea have been playing well recently, most particularly in the 2-0 victory over Aston Villa, there will be a temptation to laud this latest demonstration of quality and describe it as the best of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s reign. The temptation should be resisted. Middlesbrough were woeful and so Chelsea looked very good.
But that is not to detract from a job well done. Chelsea couldn’t pick the injured Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and Didier Drogba, and chose not to start Deco, who is returning from injury. Even though Boro were without Robert Huth, Emmanuel Pogatetz, Julio Arca, Tuncay and Justin Hoyte, it did seem a good time for Southgate’s side to to get at their rivals.
But that assumed Boro would be ready for the battle. Alas, they were not. They turned up not to bury Chelsea but to admire them. They were diligent and earnest but hopelessly tame. Their wide players, Stewart Downing and Adam Johnson, were too conscious of how Chelsea’s overlapping full-backs could hurt them and rarely did they even try to get behind the Chelsea defence.
With three very young players in their back four, Boro got themselves into all kinds of tangles defensively, especially on the flanks, and if there was anything remarkable about the first half it was that Chelsea managed to score only one goal, on 14 minutes.
A Wayne Bridge cross from the left was tamely headed away by David Wheater and, when Juliano Belletti drove the ball back in, it ricocheted off Wheater and on to left-back Andrew Taylor before dropping to Salomon Kalou. He swept it past Ross Turnbull and Chelsea more or less cruised through to half-time, seeming only half-interested in killing off meek rivals.
You wondered if they might pay for their casualness. Boro began the second half with greater urgency and ambition but in no time they were back in tentative mode, only much worse off. Downing fired a long-range shot over the bar before the second goal arrived in the 51st minute, a brilliantly struck effort by Belletti.
Receiving the ball 30 yards from goal, the Brazilian took one step forward and smashed a rocket into the top right corner of the net. Poor Turnbull moved towards the ball and, as he did, it moved further away from him. Unstoppable. Belletti is a squad player at Chelsea, unlikely to be in the team when the big boys are fit.
Kalou got the third, two minutes later, from Florent Malouda’s pass, but the real magic was delivered in an exceptional 50-yard pass struck by Bridge to the French international. Bridge is another squad player and a distant second in the race for the left-back position when Ashley Cole is fit. It’s hard for managers when opponents’ second-choice players are better than your first-teamers.
The fourth goal was a fine Frank Lampard header from an excellent Kalou cross. Malouda got the fifth after Turnbull failed to deal with Nicolas Anelka’s shot. There was still a quarter of the game to run and if Boro had been allowed to throw in a towel it would have been hard to resist.
MIDDLESBROUGH:Turnbull 5, Grounds 4, (J Johnson 54min, 5), Wheater 4, Riggott 5, Taylor 4, Aliadiere 4, Shawky 5 (Digard 65min), O'Neil 6, A Johnson 4 (Alves 65min), Downing 5, Mido 4
CHELSEA:Cudicini 6, Bosingwa 6, Terry 6, Alex 6, Bridge 7 (Ferreira 65min), Belletti 7, Lampard 7 (Deco 73min), Mikel 8, Kalou 7, Anelka 6 (Sinclair 78min), Malouda 6
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Telegraph:
Chelsea put dire Middlesbrough to the sword Middlesbrough (0) 0 Chelsea (1) 5 By Jonathan Wilson The charitable might describe this as an emphatic Chelsea win, which it was, but it would be truer to say this was a crushing Middlesbrough defeat. They were lethargic and insipid, occasionally shambolic, and Chelsea crushed them with all the effort of an elephant stepping on a sickly ant.
The ruthless way they added goal after goal in the second half was mightily, cruelly impressive, but it couldn’t alter the sense that this was like a training video put together to explain the term “routine”.
Last season, Middlesbrough produced dynamic performances in taking four home points off Arsenal and Manchester United, leading to the theory that they played their best football against the top sides.
That notion was brutally exposed on Saturday. It wasn’t until Stewart Downing clubbed a long-range drive just over two minutes into the second half that they showed any signs of emerging from under the duvet. Their reward was an icy blast of four goals in 14 minutes.
“Our passing was good, our movement was good,” said the Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard. “That’s the best we’ve played in a long time.” That’s as may be, and it would be churlish not to acknowledge how good Chelsea were, but equally it should not be ignored that they were allowed to be.
“When you lose like that it’s a very humbling experience,” said the Middlesbrough manager, Gareth Southgate. “Against a team like Chelsea there’s a danger that can happen, but I don’t think they had to be at their best to annihilate us. We never got about Chelsea. We looked like rabbits caught in the headlights.”
Chelsea’s willingness to press on and continue looking for further goals even after the game was comfortably won is perhaps indicative of a change of philosophy after the pragmatic days of Jose Mourinho, although their manager Luiz Felipe Scolari was reluctant to describe it as such. “If we win all games 1-0 we are champions,” he said, “but we need to understand that Middlesbrough have good quality and if we make any mistake they will kill us. If we score one or two or three goals it’s easier to work the ball and open the space.”
However poor Middlesbrough were, it must be a concern for the rest of the league that Chelsea could produce this sort of performance without half a dozen regular first-teamers, all of whom should be back in action soon. “We showed today that we have 23, 24 players who can all do it,” said Scolari. “We showed the spirit of the group.”
Deco came off the bench midway through the second half; Ricardo Carvalho, Petr Cech, Joe Cole and Ashley Cole could all be available for the Champions League game against Roma on Wednesday, and even Didier Drogba is likely to be fit to face Liverpool next Sunday.
“They are coming back at the right time,” Scolari said. “They are not in the best condition but when we play Liverpool we will be almost at full strength and that is important.” That leaves only Michael Ballack on the injured list, after he had surgery on his right foot to combat a nerve complaint. He is expected to be back in training within a fortnight.
The sole comfort for Middlesbrough after an awful first half was that they were only a goal down, Salomon Kalou finishing off after Juliano Belletti’s drive was half-blocked. Any thought of an unlikely rally, though, was obliterated as Belletti, who looks far more accomplished as a central midfielder than he ever did as a right-back, thrashed a 35-yard drive into the top corner.
Florent Malouda teed up Kalou for the deflected third, before Kalou, who was much the most lively of Chelsea’s front three, created the fourth for Frank Lampard with a neat chipped cross. The law of averages said Nicolas Anelka had to do something eventually, and sure enough it was his shot that Brad Jones fumbled onto the post for Malouda to hook in the fifth.
As a statement of intent it could hardly be bettered, and the goals will look great on the end-of-season highlights reel, but as a contest it had all the fascination and significance of a battle between tins and tin-openers.
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Indy:
Middlesbrough 0 Chelsea 5: Belletti is hot shot as Chelsea use Boro for target practice
By Michael Walker at the Riverside
Middlesbrough managed to upstage Chelsea yesterday but they did so by being an embarrassment. In conceding five goals in just over an hour, four in 16 second-half minutes, Boro at times displayed a lack of the basic competitive spirit. The players and their manager, Gareth Southgate, were rightly harangued by Teesside's faithful. This was as joyless as the bitter times under Steve McClaren, and Southgate described it as "a humiliation. It might have been eight".
He got that right. Inevitably there was a rush to acclaim Chelsea and see this as symbolic of a title charge but this was as much a walkover as a knockout. Luiz Felipe Scolari again placed Juliano Belletti alongside Frank Lampard in midfield, and the Brazilian responded with a 30-yarder after 51 minutes that resembled Alex's strike from the same position here last year.
Belletti has scored the winner in a European Cup final for Barcelona so this was small beer for him, but it was one of two memorable goals from Chelsea. Lampard's header 12 minutes later was another. It is six games now since Chelsea conceded a goal, and that was to Manchester United.
For Boro, it was a day they may struggle to forget. "A very humbling experience," said Southgate, who heard the jeers of the main stand as he stood on the touchline. "They're in a different league to us but we made bad mistakes, we were edgy in possession and didn't look like we had belief. We were like rabbits caught in the headlights."
From the off, nothing felt right. Not enough people turned up on time for a start. The Riverside ached with empty seats, and though many of those were filled gradually, a placid tone had been set. With warm autumn sunshine flowing, this was the opposite of hostile.
Chelsea settled in. Some native aggression, allied to injuries and the international break, should have been a recipe for an upset, but the first ingredient was missing and Boro have only themselves to blame for that.
In fielding John Obi Mikel in front of a back four featuring a restored John Terry, Scolari may have been anticipating early home pressure. It did not materialise. A team does not need to be dirty to be physical but even in those first important minutes, Middlesbrough allowed Chelsea's players the room to pass. The League leaders are not bad at this.
With Florent Malouda and Salomon Kalou fluid movers on the flanks and Lampard directing in midfield, the visitors found their rhythm quickly. It was only 14 minutes before the lead was taken. Belletti began the move with a sweeping pass to the overlapping Wayne Bridge. His deep cross was not dealt with by David Wheater and Belletti's subsequent shot hit Wheater and Gary O'Neil. Kalou pounced to snap the ball in from seven yards. Ross Turnbull had no chance.
Somehow it was only 1-0 at half-time though Lampard's miss from four yards in the 24th minute accounted for that. Carlo Cudicini made no real saves in either half. Boro required rousing but less than two minutes after the interval Malouda was clean through on Turnbull only to squander the opening. No matter. Four minutes on and Malouda eased a pass to Belletti. Unchallenged, Belletti teed up himself and let rip a screamer that hit the top corner. What semblance of a contest existed evaporated at that.
Two minutes later, a Kalou shot deflected off Wheater to make it three and then Lampard ran onto a delicious chip from Kalou to guide a header – again unchallenged – into the corner again. It was a rout completed after 67 minutes when Turnbull fluffed a drive from Nicolas Anelka and Malouda slid in to score the rebound.
Did it send out a message to the rest, Scolari was asked. "No, to me," he replied. "We have to improve."
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Observer:
Depleted Chelsea expose vast gap in classMiddlesbrough 0 Chelsea 5 Kalou 14, Belletti 51, Kalou 53, Lampard 63, Malouda 67
Paul Wilson at the Riverside Stadium Frank Lampard sends a header past Middlesbrough keeper Ross Tunrbull. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
The gulf between Chelsea and what might be termed the ordinary teams in the Premier League - if that is not too flattering a term for Middlesbrough at the moment - is now officially embarrassing. Or, to use Gareth Southgate's word, painful.
For the second successive league match Chelsea faced a team expected to do well against them, Boro's decent record against top-four teams having been given as much of an airing as Aston Villa's impressive start to the season, and simply shredded their opponents. And this time they did it with a virtual reserve side, or at least a team lacking seven of its biggest names.
The only glimpse of hope for Liverpool, Manchester United and anyone else wishing to contest the title is that this handsome victory was not achieved by Chelsea at their imperious best. Against Boro they did not need to be. All Chelsea did was run, pass and hold the ball well and fully exploit the ample areas of the Riverside pitch the home side left unguarded. Boro's resistance was pitiful.
Two years ago after a 3-0 defeat on this ground José Mourinho actually admitted Boro had been the better side and Chelsea had not deserved anything from the game. Humility comes a little more naturally to the Boro manager, who was quick to concede this had in fact been a humiliation.
'A very humbling experience for all of us,' was how Southgate described it. 'I don't even think they were at their very best and they've annihilated us. I had concerns going into the game about our inexperience in defence, but we were very, very poor. I don't know if that's my worst experience as a manager. Cardiff last season comes to mind [a home FA Cup defeat], but when you are stood on the touchline watching that it is a lonely place. It's painful, but we have to learn from it. If anyone here thought they were anywhere near being a top player they know differently now. Chelsea showed us just how far we still have to go.'
A dismal first half containing a single scrappy goal gave little indication of what was to come. Boro offered little in attack, just Mido, and their hopes of holding out defensively were holed as early as the 14th minute, when Salomon Kalou took advantage of a weak clearing header and then a deflection from David Wheater to prod in from close range. Boro's only chance of drawing level by the interval fell to Stewart Downing from a corner, and his air-shot summed up his side's afternoon.
Still, one might have expected Boro to regroup at half-time and hit Chelsea with something. Instead they gave an even more convincing impression of a doormat. The whole Premier League must know by now that Juliano Belletti will have a pop from 30 yards if you let him - he scored a screamer identical to this one at Wigan last season - yet when the ball rolled his way six minutes into the second half Mohamed Shawky was in no particular hurry to close him down and Ross Turnbull was soon picking the ball out of his net.
Shawky was substituted soon after that, as was Jonathan Grounds after naively letting Florent Malouda get goal side and being relieved to see the winger shoot wide. There was no respite, however. Two minutes after Belletti's goal Kalou scored his second, again with unintentional assistance from Wheater, after Malouda's subtle first-time knockdown. Kalou then turned provider, chipping in a perfectly judged cross from the right for the influential Frank Lampard to head past Turnbull, before the goalkeeper's misery was complete in the 67th when a Nicolas Anelka shot was spilled against a post for the eager Malouda to tap in the rebound.
At five up, with almost 20 minutes remaining, Chelsea brought on Deco. It seemed like a case for the League Against Cruel Sports, though to Boro's relief no further goals were racked up, mainly due to Anelka being pulled up for offside after John Johnson had horrified his manager by needlessly giving the ball to Lampard. That was Boro all over, already on a hiding and still making unnecessary mistakes.
Luiz Felipe Scolari resisted the temptation to agree this sent out a message to Chelsea's title rivals and said he would have been just as happy with a one-nil.
'If we win 1-0 every week then we are champions,' the Chelsea manager said with impeccable logic, even if it did not quite strike the can-do note his audience wanted to hear. 'We still have many games in front of us, it is too early to talk of being favourites for the title. I don't think we will score five goals every week but once we went in front here more chances came our way and the spaces opened.'
Spaces were soon opening up in the stands, too. Sad to report, in these depressed economic times, the visit of the all-singing, all-dancing league leaders was not a sell-out. There were blocks of empty seats among the home fans, and Chelsea did not fill the away end either.
At least the visitors stayed until the end, enjoying the show and having no choice, anyway. The home fans were free to vote with their feet and long before the final whistle the ground was half-empty. 'The players are very down but they have to leave here hurting,' Southgate said. 'Because that's what the fans did.'
THE FANS' PLAYER RATINGS AND VERDICTGeoff Vickers, MSS-online.org I'm speechless. Normally we play really well against the top teams, but from the first minute we showed no passion or grit, and we didn't compete. We were playing a weakened Chelsea team but to lose in that manner was very difficult to take. Southgate's got his line-up wrong, playing both Johnson and Downing who I don't think can play together. At half-time he should've changed it and strengthened midfield, but he kept the same side in the second half and within 10 minutes it was all over. Chelsea did play really well but didn't have to get out of third gear. Too many players underperformed – Downing in particular is not the player he was last season. Southgate needs to hold his hands up and say 'I got that wrong' and then regroup.
The fan's player ratings Turnbull 6; Grounds 5, Riggott 5, Wheater 5, Taylor 5; A Johnson 5 (J Johnson 5), O'Neil 6, Shawky 6 (Alves 6), Downing 6; Aliadière 5, Mido 6
Rob Hobson, CFCnet.co.uk Never anything to worry about here. There's nothing you can say about the opposition as they did nothing to trouble us. Alex was excellent and Terry was solid – you'd have thought with his recent injury problems that they'd get at him, but they didn't. And Lampard ran it in the middle of the field – once again he looked world-class. It was all helped by the overlapping full-backs, who were outstanding – if there is such a thing as a bargain at £16m, then Bosingwa is it. Bridge was rusty but still looked good. Scolari's demonstrated that he's got the middle and lower echelons of this league licked, and we're playing with a swagger. We no longer just close it out at 1-0, we look to score more. We're all just rubbing our hands and waiting to play a Wenger or Ferguson to truly test us.
The fan's player ratings Cudicini 7; Bosingwa 8, Alex 8, Terry 7, Bridge 6 (Ferreira 7); Belletti 8, Mikel 8, Lampard 10 (Deco 7); Kalou 8, Malouda 7, Anelka 7 (Sinclair n/a)
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Mail:
Just like watching Brazil as Chelsea put on a carnival and tear Boro apartBy Rob DraperMiddlesbrough 0 Chelsea 5
October is a little early to be hailing the Premier League champions, but if there is a weakness in Luiz Felipe Scolari's Chelsea team it has yet to be identified. Doubtless Manchester United will argue the point until long into next year but if they were pushed close to the title and the Champions League by a club in managerial disarray last season, it is frightening to imagine what Chelsea might do now they are united force. Yesterday they were magnificent.
To say they were a league apart from Middlesbrough does not truly do justice to their superiority.
They devoured Boro as though they were pathetic, defenceless prey. In addition, there is a real danger that under Scolari the world may even end up loving Chelsea like the world loves Brazil.
Yesterday's annihilation followed the dismissal of Aston Villa's pretensions a fortnight ago in similar fashion.
This is just like watching Brazil, as Barnsley fans used to sing of their team; Chelsea fans can do so without irony. 'I think that's the best we've played for a long time,' said Frank Lampard.
'I've said that a couple of times this season and we can't take our foot off the pedal but at the moment we feel really confident.
'We've come off an international week and people might have expected a dodgy performance here but if we play as well as that, we will give ourselves a great chance this season.'
Would Chelsea have played with such swashbuckling style had a special manager been in charge?
Lampard felt there was little difference, yet he was perhaps being kind to his former mentor.
The suspicion is that 2-0 would have been enough here for Jose Mourinho.
Ironically, Scolari is not renowned for playing the beautiful game in Brazil, but perhaps standards are higher there. This Chelsea team push on and on and Scolari was not content with a one-goal lead.
'Middlesbrough have good quality and if we make one mistake they will kill us,' said Scolari. 'If we have two, three goals, it's easier and we can work the ball and open up the space.'
They did that, and then some more. And all this without Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack, Michael Essien and Didier Drogba. When they get rid of the reserves, this Chelsea side will be dangerous.
'This team sent a message to me,' said Scolari of his stand-in players. 'The players were saying: "Look at me! Play me more times".'
Talk of the title was sensibly deferred.
'We have many games to go,' added Scolari. 'We have won one game and if this game was the 35th or 36th and we were three or six points in front, it would be different. Now all the teams can get near to us.
'We need to play every game as though it were the last of the season and if we get to the last few games with one or two other teams near the top, then this is what I want.'
It should be added that Middlesbrough were poor beyond belief and have now lost four in five games. They missed Robert Huth and captain Emanuel Pogatetz defensively and the stand-in back four was indescribably awful. In midfield they lacked authority and Mido barely registered an impact up front. Stewart Downing registered their one shot on goal and made a calamitous miskick from a first-half chance.
'It's a humiliation to lose at home and it's hard to take,' said Gareth Southgate, who compared the defeat to the club's FA Cup quarter-final exit to Cardiff last season, his previous worst day in management.
'To be beaten like that was very humbling for all of us. I don't think they had to be at their best but we were annihilated. We were very poor and they were a different league to us.'Cardiff last season was a tough afternoon and it is a lonely place when you're stood on the touchline. If anyone thought they were near to being a top player, that is what they have to attain. Physically, tactically, technically and fitness-wise they were better than us. There are some things I have to look at and learn from and some things the players have to aspire to.'
Chelsea might have been four up by half-time but had to settle for a mere one-goal lead. Wayne Bridge delivered a fine cross on 15 minutes which David Wheater failed to clear properly.
Juliano Belletti saw his shot deflected off Wheater and Salomon Kalou reacted quickest.
It was a 16-minute spell in the second half that demolished Boro. Belletti's magnificent swerving shot from 25 yards on 51 minutes began the rout.
A wonderful cross-field ball from Bridge found Florent Malouda on 53 minutes and his first-touch knock-back was finished by Kalou for the third.
Ten minutes later came the fourth, a charming chip from Kalou that Lampard headed home.
To compound the humiliation, Ross Turnbull fumbled Nicolas Anelka's shot on 67 minutes and when the ball rebounded off a post, Malouda scored the fifth.MIDDLESBROUGH (4-4-2): Turnbull; Grounds (J Johnson 54min), Riggott, Wheater, Taylor; A Johnson (Alves 65), O'Neill, Shawky (Digard 65), Downing; Aliadiere, Mido. Subs (not used): Jones, Emnes, Bennett, Walker. Booked: O'Neil, Alves.
CHELSEA (4-3-3): Cudicini; Bosingwa, Alex, Terry, Bridge (Ferreira 65); Belletti, Mikel, Lampard (Deco 73); Kalou, Anelka (Sinclair 78), Malouda. Subs (not used): Hilario, Ivanovic, Mancienne, Stoch.
Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).
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NOTW:
MIDDLESBROUGH 0, CHELSEA 5 Scolari second-string rip Boro apart
By MARTIN HARDY at The Riverside, 18/10/2008
IMPERIOUS Chelsea — so good you had to sit back and applaud.
So good that it was easy to forget this was their second string that destroyed a young Boro side with just 67 minutes played.
So good that a message of serious intent has been blasted through the halls of Old Trafford, Anfield and the Emirates.
Man-of-the-match Florent Malouda deservedly rounded off the scoring after Salomon Kalou (two), Juliano Belletti and Frank Lampard had put the home side to the sword.
And it was all done with SEVEN first-teamers absent through injury. Count them — Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho, Ashley and Joe Cole, Michael Ballack, Petr Cech and Michael Essien.
They were not missed. Praise does not come much higher.
Click here to see what real Middlesbrough and Chelsea fans think of today's game - and to have your say
Boss Phil Scolari had promised not to use excuses with so much talent sidelined. It was prophetic — he didn’t need any.
Not when the shackles of previous regimes at Stamford Bridge were so spectacularly shed.
This was Mourinho steel merging with Maracana magic.
Belletti is a 32-year-old right-back. He fizzed around yesterday like a colt and crashed home Chelsea’s stunning second from 32.5 yards — TV counted them — and created such havoc, along with Kalou and Malouda that Middlesbrough could not cope.
It was a joy to watch, for those in Blue at least. ‘Boring, boring Chelsea’ mocked their own supporters.
This was an afternoon they have waited a long time for. Roman Abramovich has pushed for this kind of football for four years — shame he missed it.
From start to finish his club excelled, breaking what flimsy resistance they met in less than quarter-of-an-hour.
Showboat It was a goal that said as much about Middlesbrough’s inadequacies than anything else.
Wayne Bridge’s deep cross from the left should have been cleared by David Wheater. It wasn’t.
The Boro defender’s glancing header fell to Belletti, whose shot struck Andrew Taylor and Wheater and fell into Kalou’s path eight yards from goal. He did not miss.
Once Belletti had struck in the 51st minute, it was time for the visitors to showboat.
Chelsea added a third just two minutes later. Malouda cut a low cross back to Kalou and his effort deflected off Wheater and beyond keeper Ross Turnbull. The sheer pace of movement merited a goal.
Lampard added No 4 in the 63rd minute with a diving, glancing header from Kalou’s right-wing cross.
No 5 came just four minutes later. Turnbull let a Nicolas Anelka shot squirm from his grasp on to the post and Malouda was there to stab in from close range.
Arsenal panned Middlesbrough 6-1 at the Riverside during the Steve McClaren era. It had that same sort of feel.
Chelsea’s dominance was matched only by the incompetence of their opponents.
Scolari’s second string should not be that much better. Not in the Premier League, not in the greatest league in the world. Surely the gap has not grown to such a level. Except it has.
Failing Roll out the cliches. They all apply. If it had been in the boxing ring, it would have been stopped. In a race, Middlesbrough would have been lapped. In a football match, it made you cringe.
As one Middlesbrough fan said to his mate at half-time — bearing in mind it was only 1-0: “My missus asked me to go to the pictures this afternoon. I said ‘Don’t be daft, love, I’m going to the match’. I wish I’d gone with her!”
Boro boss Gareth Southgate was, for once, lost. His starting formation was wrong and the absence of Didier Digard and Afonso Alves was costly.
It still felt cruel when jeers from home fans greeted his walk to the technical area on the hour mark.
Southgate said: “It is a humiliation. It is hard to take. It is a humbling experience.
“I don’t think they had to be at their best. They annihilated us. It showed us we are very, very young. We are not at a level to compete with a side like that.
“They are in a different league to us. We have made bad mistakes, we were edgy in possession. We didn’t have belief but the reality is we have been outclassed.
“It is a lonely place on the touchline. It is painful. We have to learn from the experience. It is a blow to morale. Deep down, I had concerns we were inexperienced at the back.
“Our weaknesses have been exposed in front of the country. We looked like rabbits in the headlights.”
Scolari, by contrast, was asked if Chelsea are now favourites for the title. “No, no, no,” he said.
It was the only unconvincing show from either him or his side all afternoon.
He added: “I don’t think about United, Liverpool or Arsenal. I think about my team only.
“My job is Chelsea. I am here. All the time we need to improve. It was a good performance but we can get better.”
That is worrying. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
