It Worries Me to See All the Defensive Mistakes We Made, Says Scolari

Chelsea departed Italy last night in a state of shock at the defensive fragility that has served to complicate their passage out of Group A, and with Deco denouncing the late sending-off which will cost him a place in the side against Bordeaux later this month as "crazy".

The visitors had just clawed a goal back with around nine minutes remaining when the Portuguese playmaker, already booked for a first-half foul on Francesco Totti, was penalized by the referee, Luis Medina Cantalejo, for taking an attacking free-kick too quickly as Chelsea sought to halve their deficit.

"I'd already started to kick the ball when the referee told me to wait. I was already touching the ball, so there was nothing I could do," said Deco. "It was just crazy. What could I do?"

Luiz Felipe Scolari was just as infuriated by a decision that will deprive his team of one of their creative hubs in France in three weeks' time. "If that had been a Roma player who had done that, he wouldn't have received a red card, for sure," said the Brazilian, though he was more enraged by the defensive mistakes that undermined his team's challenge and allowed Roma and Bordeaux to move within a point of Chelsea at the top of the group. We just didn't play very well and we made mistakes in critical times and presented Roma with their best two chances," said Scolari.

"We had the ball for the first goal, then gave it away and they won a free-kick, pressuring us to get the foul. It was not the time to play short passes like that, but nobody covered the cross or followed [Christian] Panucci at the goal and, after that, they could control the game with their five-man midfield.

"Their second goal killed us and it was finished after that. Roma may have been struggling in Italy, but they still have good players and, when you make mistakes like we did today, they can kill you. They put five, six or seven behind the ball after that and it was hard to create against them.

"It is worrying to see the mistakes we made tonight. We'll have to think about the next game and work out why this happened. Maybe we need to be more relaxed in future and realize that, at 1-0, the game isn't finished. We'd had three or four good attempts in that first half. After that we used Didier [Drogba] with Nicolas Anelka and Salomon Kalou, but they closed us down very well. But that is not why we lost.

"We gave the ball away too easily, made the wrong passes, and too many mistakes. We haven't made mistakes like that in our other games, but we must learn from them. The group is still in our hands, even if the other teams are arriving at our backs. We need to reach 10 points and, if we win our next game [against Bordeaux] we are there. But the group is open. For all."

Scolari is hopeful that Michael Ballack will have recovered after undergoing surgery on his feet in time to feature in Bordeaux as the suspended Deco's replacement. "Maybe I will have the players like Ballack back for that match," added Scolari. "I am sure we will have quality in midfield to cope without Deco but we must play better than we did tonight."

Three of the worst

Last night was only the third time Chelsea had conceded three times and lost in the past four years

April 12 2005 Bayern Munich 3 Chelsea 2

Despite twice taking the lead at the Olympiastadion Chelsea were defeated when they conceded twice in injury time. No matter, though, as a 4-2 first-leg lead carried them into the Champions League semi-finals

February 11 2006 Middlesbrough 3 Chelsea 0

"Attitude" was the word coach Jose Mourinho used to sum up the difference between the sides here in a loss that set off a frustrating period for the eventual league champions