Besiktas didn’t do a lot to score but in the Champions’ League you

Besiktas didn’t do a lot to score, but in the Champions’ League you make small mistakes and you are punished In the first half we were stuck in the middle. But Ranieri will have to remedy things quickly, especially with the double-header against the Italians still to come. Lazio were the last team to win a European tie at the Bridge in 40 matches before Besiktas.Chelsea’s only ever-present this season, the goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini, who was partly at fault for one of the goals on Wednesday, said: “This is a wake-up call for us and maybe that is a good thing. Abramovich, it must be remembered, would not have bought Chelsea if they were not in the Champions’ League. If they fail to qualify from the group stages then goodness knows his response.That fear is some way off, especially after Lazio’s draw with Sparta Prague.

Losing to a team who, although unbeaten domestically for 15 months, have never made an impact on this stage and had never won away before, did not come into the equation. Predictably the name of Juan Sebastian Veron, who has performed poorly, has been mentioned.But it will have been the humiliation inflicted by the Turkish champions which hurt. Abramovich bought Chelsea to win things, to provide a calling card into Europe. Already, despite public protestations, the new ownership believes the best is not being extracted from the talent available. Abramovich, it is said at Stamford Bridge, was none too pleased with the slender victory over Leicester City in the first home game of the season either and was prepared to say so.Presumably he was no happier after the unconvincing win against Aston Villa.

Ranieri has faced up to it, and the whispering campaign over his own position, admirably.Still, it was clear yesterday that the 2-0 home defeat against Besiktas in the Champions’ League on Wednesday night, damaging as it was, will have not been the first match to earn the displeasure of the arriviste Russian. Such is the price Claudio Ranieri must pay at Chelsea.
Hopefully, the Italian is being as handsomely remunerated as the £111m worth of talent he has quickly assembled in the Roman Abramovich era, to add to the well-funded squad already in place. Undoubtedly, he faces a daunting task in assimilating old and new. In the upside-down world of Premiership football a manager will go into this weekend’s fixtures with a record of eight wins, one draw, one defeat and be under more pressure than ever. It is easy to forget amid the hype that the teenager is very raw and while the step-overs and flashes of pace might unsettle a Bolton or a Charlton they would not intimidate the tightest defence in Germany.* The Paris St-Germain coach, Vahid Halilhodzic, has hinted that he may move for Manchester United’s goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez, when the transfer window reopens in January.. Their greatest threat, especially in the opening period of the first half which they controlled fairly comfortably, came from crosses, supplied by either Ryan Giggs or Gary Neville. Beckham’s crosses and free-kicks are of a far higher calibre as Veron’s passing so often was on big European nights.On Wednesday evening it was Cristiano Ronaldo, rather than Beckham, who wore the No 7 shirt and it was not a first Champions’ League start to remember, even without what Stuttgart thought was a dive to win United’s penalty.