Scolari is bewildered and all out of ideas as Blues fall

Losing to Manchester United may have been painful for the Blues in Moscow, but at least they could look back on that performance with pride and blame misfortune for coming off second best.

In contrast, their showing at Old Trafford was abject and not only makes them firm outsiders for the Premier League title, but also puts the club's place in the top four under threat.

Chelsea have played in the Champions League every season since 2003-04 and have finished in the top two for five consecutive years.

However, a woeful run of 10 points from their last eight games leaves them extremely vulnerable to missing out on a place at Europe's top table.

With a noticeable absence of the team spirit that helped them win Premier League trophies in 2005 and 2006, Chelsea may need to forget about fighting Liverpool and Manchester United for top spot and focus on keeping ahead of Arsenal and this season's surprise package, Aston Villa.

Martin O'Neill's side are showing the consistency Chelsea are lacking at the moment and have genuine attacking threat with the pace of Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Where Luiz Felipe Scolari's men are disjointed and laborious, Villa are attacking teams with confidence and will be looking forward to their clash with the Blues on 21 February.

For the past few months, it seemed Arsenal were the most likely of the Big Four to fall victim to Villa's resurgence, but the Gunners have started to succeed where Chelsea have failed, namely winning games while not actually playing well.

The more Scolari shrugs his shoulders and promises to improve things in training, the less convincing he becomes.

As his team collapsed with a whimper against a Manchester United side playing barely out of first gear, the Brazilian looked like a man bewildered and out of ideas.

Pity he couldn't have run into the directors' box and had a word with Chelsea's former manager and deliverer of six trophies in three years, Jose Mourinho.

The Special One was at the game to study United, Inter Milan's opponents in the first knock-out phase of the Champions League next month, yet he must have looked at the players in blue and realised they are not so special any more.

The Chelsea fans who travelled to see the debacle were far from satisfied.

They saw their team register just one shot on target in the whole game and that was a speculative effort from 30 yards by Ashley Cole. This was despite United's influential defender Rio Ferdinand failing to return from a back problem and the inexperienced Jonny Evans playing alongside Nemanja Vidic.

For all his talk about new tactics in training, Scolari set the side up as expected with Didier Drogba leading the line on his own with the midfield quartet of Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack and Deco behind him.

United created more opportunities early on, while Chelsea's moves often floundered with Drogba often being guilty of losing possession.

Ryan Giggs had a free-kick palmed away by Petr Cech and Dimitar Berbatov sent a weak shot straight at the Czech goalkeeper in the opening half hour.

The deadlock was broken in injury time and it was no surprise that it came from a set piece, for Chelsea have been exposed regularly in the past few months.

United had been unlucky to see their first attempt from a cheeky corner ruled out, but the visitors' relief was shortlived as, from the retake, Giggs's cross was flicked on by Berbatov and Vidic headed in at the back post.

Chelsea had supposedly worked harder on defending set pieces in training, yet there are still no signs of improvement.

After the break came Scolari's Plan B as he put Nicolas Anelka on to play alongside Drogba up front.

Unfortunately, he pushed Frank Lampard to the left of midfield to cater for the Frenchman and it only made the team play worse.

Wayne Rooney made the most of poor marking at back post to turn in Patrice Evra's cross and then Chelsea conceded from another set piece when Berbatov turned in Ronaldo's free-kick.

The body language of the Chelsea players was terrible and Lampard appeared to shout at Cech, who sat in his goal disconsolately for a few seconds, telling him get up in no uncertain terms.

After the game Mourinho made his way down to the tunnel and managed to grab a few words with his former players. Even a manager with his record might struggle with the task of turning around Chelsea's season.