Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving

GROUND CONTROL TO LORD FERGIE

The world really hasn’t changed that much in the last 20 years. Admittedly, the Fiver is writing this from its house on the moon, while popping food pills and watching its robot wife oil her lovely joints but Ryan Giggs offers as much change as a city boy passing a beggar. On 3 March 1991 Giggs made his debut against Everton, offering support to Brian McClair. Should he recover from injury and play tonight Giggs will once again come up against a team of mid-table lumberers while offering support for a jabby-elbowed striker going through a goalscoring drought.

Despite the fact that Chelsea are as threatening as picnic with the cast of Rosemary and Thyme, Lord Ferg still considers this as a Big Game, meaning he’ll probably deploy the 4-5-1 he used against Marseille last week, with Giggs and Nani adding width to the attack while Tabloid Wayne stumbles round like an elephant trying to fight off the effects of a tranquilliser dart. There’s even a gameplan should Giggs stay on the bench; he’ll sit in the middle while Bebe and Gabriel Obertan studiously ignore him.

Meanwhile, Didier Drogba has given Chelsea a boost by committing his future to the club. “I have everything I dream of [at Stamford Bridge],” he said, on his daily commute from his house on the moon, while popping food pills and watching robot wife oil her lovely joints. “I’m at a great club with extraordinary team-mates, in a perfect life for my family. A few years ago, I could say ‘I dream of playing for Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United’. However, today I no longer feel the need.”

David Luiz is set to make his third start for Chelsea and as well as defending is likely to support the attack with one of his trademark rambles forward. Not that Chelsea need much help with their shooting of late.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I saw an interview with Alan Pardew where he said he hoped to get some of the £35m [for Andy Carroll] and I thought ‘Alan, you ain’t going to get any of that’” – For once, you can’t really disagree with Kevin Keegan.

SMASH IT UP

Not for the first time, a piece of art was destroyed at the Britannia Stadium last night. In the most hilarious art-based caper since Mr Bean’s run-in with Whistler’s Mother, Stoke were left fuming after West Brom defender Jonas Olsson smashed a picture in the tunnel after a draw so boring the Fiver preferred to watched the test card instead.

Olsson was in a funk after Stoke’s Ricardo Fullerhad refused to shake his hand after the final whistle – thus becoming surely the angriest Jonas since one of his brothers misplaced his chastity ring. Afterwards West Brom’s manager, Roy Hodgson, was quick to say sorry, although Liverpool fans will be frustrated to learn that his apology did not feature the words “Paul”, “Konchesky”, “Christian” or “Poulsen”.

“The picture wasn’t a very good fighter,” parped Hodgson. “To be fair, I don’t think the lad saw the glass.” A West Brom defender failing to pay attention, losing his head and charging into a situation recklessly? Perish the thought. “I think he thought it was a poster but he banged his hand against glass and won,” Hodgson chuckled, adding: “I’m pretty certain that a team that plays with so much heart and determination and strength as Stoke City will probably forgive us!”

He couldn’t have been more wrong. Tony Pulis was incandescent with rage. “If you can’t control yourself and you smash someone else’s property because someone doesn’t shake your hand, I don’t see that as an excuse. It’s property that has been paid for by this football club and he has no right to break things like that.” Sentiments, perhaps, that will be echoed by Aaron Ramsey’s leg.

DOUBLE YOUR MONEY WITH BLUE SQUARE!

Open an account with online bookies Blue Square, placing a bet of at least £5 and they’ll give you a free £10 bet, win or lose! (Terms Apply) Register now.

FIVER LETTERS

“I hope that a great many more than 1,057 people have written in to express their rage at the spineless and ludicrous reaction of the FA to the incident that Mark Clattenburg clearly didn’t see properly. Can the FA be charged with bringing the game into disrepute?” – David Burton (and 1,058 others).

“When Emmanuel Adebayor

Misfiring strikers and growing interference from Roman Abramovich make for little festive cheer at Stamford Bridge

The cover of the current Chelsea FC magazine features holly and twinkly stars and shows Didier Drogba with the headline: “Switched on for Christmas – Drogba and his gift for scoring.” This is the gift that stopped giving.

Nicolas Anelka: no goals since 3 November. Florent Malouda: only one since 23 October. Drogba, who scored 38 for club and country in 2009-10: one goal in eight games since 3 November. In six matches from 14 August Chelsea stuffed 25 past West Brom, Wigan, Stoke, West Ham, Zilina and Blackpool, and Carlo Ancelotti’s side seemed to be cartwheeling towards another Premier League title. Now: one win in six league games and the return of political intrigue in the house of Abramovich has left Ancelotti confessing: “I’m not happy in my job at the moment. I’m searching for the right way to do better.”

A team is a machine and when one part breaks down it can make the others conk out. Ancelotti is accustomed to fielding questions about having Roman Abramovich’s hot breath on his neck and the Ray Wilkins sacking but has yet to explain why such a prolific side have turned so goal-shy. Sunday brings a visit to Spurs and both Manchester United and Arsenal must be faced in the next fortnight.

Without a restoration of their confident, breezy style, Chelsea’s defence of the title could be broken by the new year. To avert such an embarrassing start to 2011 they need their three forwards to reclaim the attacking potency that prompted many analysts to think Ancelotti’s best XI is superior to that of José Mourinho’s, always the measuring stick at Stamford Bridge.

“There’s not just one reason. First I think Didier is not 100% fit,” Ancelotti says. “He had malaria and that caused a fitness problem. He’s not quick enough at the moment. From the back we are too slow and when we arrive in front [in the attacking third of the pitch] there is no space for the final ball. If we look at the game against Birmingham [which they lost 1-0] we had maybe 10 or 11 chances to score. We miss the last pass and the shot. This is the third reason: more focus when we shoot.”

This technical summation of the collapse in the goalscoring department chimes with the dramatic slowing down and growing imprecision in Chelsea’s play. “We have to use the training session to improve our defensive positions,” Ancelotti says. “We are not good enough in possession because it’s not clean and quick. We have to improve this.”

Behind this diagnosis lurk all kinds of psychological and political complications, some of which reflect the loss of Frank Lampard since August and the absences of John Terry and Michael Essien for four weeks until the 1-1 draw with Everton. With Essien, Chelsea have played 12 league games and won nine. Without him, they have failed to win in four.

All around the club these days you can sense Abramovich’s hand on the wheel. The periods when oligarchical interference is at its height are the ones to be endured. The suspicion is that those who manage the club wait for him to drift off again so they can all get back to business. Abramovich can hardly be expected to cop the blame for the 3-0 home defeat to Sunderland or the midweek Champions League defeat at Marseille – but Ancelotti appears increasingly inclined to explain himself to his employer.

“I have a constant relationship with him because he wants to be involved in what happens in the squad,” he says of Abramovich. “At the moment it’s not good and he wants it to be good.

“He never asks me to change something. He’s happy for me to manage the team. I like to explain to him how I took decisions. I like to explain. It’s a duty.”

A former employee of Silvio Berlusconi, at Milan, Ancelotti is accustomed to stroking plutocratic egos but here in England it would be anathema for Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsène Wenger to talk to a mere owner as a footballing equal (Brian Clough and Abramovich would have made a good match, in the pyrotechnical sense).

With one eye on the sky for descending helicopters, Ancelotti fixes his main gaze on the training ground for signs that the pace and purpose of last season’s Double winners has not disappeared for good. “These players have strong personalities, they want to stay at the top, they want to stay protagonists in this season,” he insists. “They want to stay the top players in the world. This is their motivation. It’s not enough to earn money. For every one of us – we are not here for money,”

Reassuringly, for students of “no-holds-barred” sit-downs, a truth-telling conference has indeed taken place. Ancelotti says: “We had a meeting. Very clear. We explained everything. Everyone agreed. Now it’s not enough to speak, we have to act.

“Sometimes in your life you have to take a risk. Now we have to take a risk. I’m happy to play against Tottenham. It could be the most difficult game at the moment because Tottenham at home are very strong. [Gareth] Bale is uncontrollable. Very quick. You could lose your mind. I’m happy to play against him – but I don’t know whether [right-back] Paulo Ferreira is.”

This far into the drought the three senior strikers can no longer blame midfield sterility. “I’m not angry with the players but I’m not happy,” their leader says. “It’s not my character to be angry with the players. If you shout every time nobody listens. Sometimes I shout. This month – more than once.”

They had better get “switched on for Christmas”, or a long darkness could descend.

ChelseaPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk