Robinho could have made all the difference: Scolari

Luiz Felipe Scolari said he was in charge of a ‘bureaucratic’ Chelsea side which, because of injuries to key players and the lack of a game-changing forward like Robinho, left him with few tactical options.

Speaking to France Football magazine a week before he was sacked on Monday the Brazilian admitted he faced several challenges during his short stint with the Premier League giants.

Scolari told the magazine he had two main requests before taking over from the sacked Avram Grant at Stamford Bridge, namely signing Brazilian forward Robinho and Brazil-born Portuguese midfielder Deco.

Despite managing to sign Deco, Manchester City swept in with an unrivalled bid of 42 million euros to snatch Robinho from rival clubs.

The subsequent lack of a flair player with game-changing abilities – and injuries to Didier Drogba, Deco, Mickael Essien and Ashley Cole among others – limited Scolari’s tactical options, according to the Brazilian.

“At Chelsea we don’t have a player who is capable of provoking chances on his own and producing some magic on the pitch,” said Scolari in the interview, published Friday but conducted prior to his sacking last week.

“Robinho would have been that player. He’s not afraid to dribble and to take risks. As a Brazilian, that’s the kind of player I like.

“My team is not Brazilian enough, it’s too bureaucratic. That’s just the style of my players, and is why Robinho would have made such a difference.”

A 0-0 league result with Hull last weekend effectively sealed Scolari’s fate, but even before then there were reports of dissent from the Chelsea dressing room.

Rumours said that some players complained of Scolari’s lax training regime, and soon it became apparent he had lost the support of some of his players.

The Sun newspaper even warned that Chelsea had become a club “deeply divided by warring factions”.

Scolari added in the interview that the presence of egos in the Chelsea dressing room, whose combined annual salaries have prompted the club to tighten the purse strings, wasn’t helped by the lack of relations with the players off the pitch.

“There are egos in the dressing room, but that is normal, isn’t it?

“My relations with the players are good on the pitch but it’s true that they don’t compare with the relations I had with the Portugal side. I spent five years there.

“In Brazil as a club manager, it was also easier. I knew everything about the players. Here, I don’t have a family relation with the players. Everything is on the pitch. Outside, there is nothing.”