Saturday 3 October 2015 17:41, UK
Jose Mourinho is facing some big decisions with his Chelsea team selection against Southampton - and John Terry has to start, says Jamie Redknapp…
When you drop someone like John Terry - who is practically an institution at Chelsea - you have to make sure it works. The players have a lot of respect for him and the fans love him, so if you leave him out of the team you have to keep clean sheets and defend properly.
But don't tell me Chelsea are a better team without Terry - they're not. You only have to look at the goals they've conceded and the manner in which they've conceded them. The performances suggest they function better with his organisation.
Jose Mourinho also left out Nemanja Matic and Eden Hazard against Porto, and it almost looks like there's paranoia in that dressing room. That's come from the manager making one change after another and looking for the right ingredients to make the team function, but at the moment they look miles off what they were last year.
Now the manager has got some big decisions to make. Is he too proud to pick John Terry again? Sometimes as a manager you've got to know when to say, 'OK, I got that one wrong'. Against Southampton, I think he's got to bring back Terry. Especially against Graziano Pelle, an opponent who should suit him down to the ground.
The problem you get with that is that Terry hasn't played in a while, he probably won't be feeling a million dollars, so by picking him you're pushing him under huge pressure. But they can't keep going the way they are.
Then there's Branislav Ivanovic. When teams played Chelsea last year, they would have thought there's absolutely no point attacking down their right-hand side because you won't get a kick out of Ivanovic.
But ever since that Swansea game where Jefferson Montero gave him a torrid time, everyone has attacked Chelsea down their right. He looks like a shadow of his former self.
The two big players he hasn't left out are Cesc Fabregas and Ivanovic, but they've been as poor as anyone. Everyone has been poor this year. Fabregas' stats are down. Diego Costa has not got as many goals.
The only game when I thought they played pretty well was against Arsenal, but apart from that I can't remember too many games since Christmas where you can say Chelsea have played really well.
You could sense there was something wrong in the Swansea game on the opening day of the season. I tipped them to win the league, but that changed when I saw them play against Swansea.
You could distinctly detect that something was wrong. They were grinding out results at the end of last season but this year there's been a huge drop in their performances.
Up front, Costa is still banned. I actually think this one was quite harsh. But when he's more interested in fighting than playing football, what does he expect?
When someone like Costa gets banned, you need to be able to bring in players who will do a good job. Radamel Falcao doesn't look like he's that player. I think Mourinho has to take a lot of responsibility for not bringing in a super centre forward and thinking that he can get Falcao back to his best.
No one gets satisfaction out of Falcao's performances, and I'd like to see him score some goals to prove people wrong, but there hasn't been anything to suggest he's capable of doing that yet.
It's not necessarily a must-win game for Chelsea, because in terms of catching United and City you only need to go on a run of five or six wins on the spin and things can change, but they urgently need to improve… and it won't be easy.
Southampton threat
I put this in the category of a horrible fixture for Chelsea. People expect them to win but I think Southampton have turned the corner a little bit with their win against Swansea.
Sadio Mane, Dusan Tadic and Pelle can cause Chelsea a lot of problems. Mane's fast and incisive running is dangerous. He can get after people and dribble.
At the back, Virgil van Dijk had a tough time against Anthony Martial but I think he'll be a good signing for them in the long-term. That result against Swansea was really big for them. To beat a Swansea side that I like a lot is a good result.
They had a great start last year then a bad run, but this season I can see Southampton developing as it goes on.
Watch Chelsea v Southampton on Sky Sports 1 HD from 5pm on Saturday
