Avram winning over his Chelsea stars

Didier Drogba has made his feelings quite clear on Mourinho's departure and Grant's promotion. Too unhappy to stay, he said, but not too upset to take advantage of Middlesbrough's fragility to destroy them.

Gareth Southgate's Boro team had hardly made a tackle when Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard for aged the path to Mark Schwarzer's goal in the eighth minute and Drogba neatly slipped home his third goal of the season.

Alex killed the home side's halfhearted resurgence 12 minutes into the second half with a thunderbolt free-kick from almost 40 yards, a set-piece awarded against an aggrieved Fabio Rochemback and which George Boateng tried to block but for an intervention from Drogba.

For Boro, two Mido headers were dealt with by Petr Cech while their best chance fell to Turkey international Tuncay Sanli. After that, as Riverside regulars will tell you, the outcome was sadly predictable.

The visiting side threatened to add to the scoring as another poor Riverside crowd (27,699) headed for the exits prematurely . Grant spoke of an 'obligation to entertain'. "It is the right way in modern football," he said. "There is no other way. You need to win games and entertain, not like it was before."

Then, spotting his mistake, added: 'I have full respect for the past here but I'm looking only for the positive things, not the negatives. We are trying to change and do it my way. But I won't say one negative word about the past because I don't feel it."

Drogba's derogatory comments about Mourinho's exit could have backfired. It was at Lampard's insistence at the end that Drogba showed his appreciation to the visiting fans who refused to boo him by throwing his sodden shirt to them. These are the same fans who are so far refusing to acknowledge the change at the top.

Thankfully for them, the players are unbeaten in five, have won three on the trot and only played once at home since Grant took over. With this spell they have stayed in touch with the League leaders while Cech confessed they had little choice to get on with the situation. The Czech keeper said: 'As a player you need to adapt as soon as you can. We have needed a bit of time but I think everyone has done it very quickly. Now we're playing better and better.

'Everyone is different but for me any decision which is surprising is difficult to take. The most important thing is the team and you have to give 100 per cent for the team at all times.

"I think you can see from the direction we're going that everyone is giving their all, even though it was a big shock."

"We've tried to help the new manager and the new coaches by getting good results because the team is always the main focus. Suddenly when you change everything that worked for many years it is always a big shock.

"We hope to close the gap as quickly as we can. December to January is usually our strongest period, when there are a lot of games coming one after the other. We're looking to go into that period full of strength and in a good position."

Boro's deficiencies were exposed by a ruthless Chelsea, with a trip to Old Trafford coming next.

This is even tougher than last season for Southgate, who has not received much sympathy from Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson in the past. But even the United boss will empathise with the injury crisis which is exposing the absence of departed strikers Mark Viduka and Yakubu, who led the frontline in the two previous home wins over Chelsea.

Southgate admitted: "We are looking to strengthen in every department but we have the group we have got for the next 10 games. We have to drive them to get results.

"It is a disappointment to send the fans away with all the air let out of the balloon, but there is no easy route for us and no easy solutions. We know we have lots of the problems but the solutions are harder to find at the moment. It is up to us to find them.