EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

After the victory against Wigan Saturday Scolari described how he was preparing to finalize the Chelsea squad. “Tomorrow when I am back at the club I will discuss these things. It is important [to be focused] before a game. Last week we only talked about Wigan but tomorrow I will talk about players. Tomorrow when I come into the club I will discuss this or that, who comes, who goes. First we finished the game. Now we get back to London and I start a new week.” What happens remains to be seen but we may see the departure of Shaun-Wright Phillips.

“If Deco is scoring goals or if Lampard is scoring goals is not important, what is important is if Chelsea win. Chelsea is more important than us. They are friends and if one scores the other players are happy. I read that Lampard, in the last two or three seasons, has scored 20 goals every year. This season maybe 25, but maybe 15 or 10. Maybe even five. It is not important [as long as] Chelsea win.”

Wigan’s manager Steve Bruce seemed disappointed by the 1-0 loss to Chelsea because he felt that they competed physically for the ball but were unable to technically dominate the game.

“When you play the top teams you have to have people ready and willing to do their jobs and run a million miles. My midfield four ran themselves to a standstill. You have to do that, you have to physically work harder then they do but we just lacked that little bit of quality. The set-piece delivery just wasn’t there. It was terrible and that is the one disappointment. In pre-season [Olivier] Kapo, [Jason] Koumas, and [Daniel] de Ridder have all delivered and our set-pieces are usually good. But here they were appalling and it didn’t matter who took them, because they all had a go. You need good dead-ball specialists and we have some good ones but they were a huge disappointment.”

In reference to Deco’s impressive performance Bruce joked: “Who is that lad by the way? Where has he been playing for the last couple of years? Seriously though, he oozes class and that is why he is at the very highest level. Chelsea had a bad day but there was one bit of brilliance from Deco.”