Malouda: Blame players, not AVB

Posted Wednesday, November 23, 2011 by ESPN

Florent Malouda insisted he and his team-mates were to blame, not Andre Villas-Boas, for Chelsea's worst start to a season.

Three defeats in four Barclays Premier League games has piled the pressure on new manager Villas-Boas little more than three months into the campaign.

Reports have suggested some players are unhappy with Villas-Boas' tactics but winger Malouda claimed there was no question of blaming the 34-year-old for the current slump.

"I don't think the solution is about looking at the manager," he said.

"We are the ones going out on the pitch and performing in a good or bad way.

"We have all the ingredients at the club right now - the board, the technical staff, the players and the manager - to perform. We've done it in the past.

"We've got good players in the squad, and we still have that ambition. It's difficult to explain why it went wrong recently, but we started the season well and were able to compete with the top teams in the league, and get to first place in the group.

"There's no reason to panic. Everyone wants to give us advice or point at the manager.
"We have to take our responsibility on the pitch."

Malouda admitted he was as guilty as anyone of underperforming of late.

"I would say that I need to step up my game more," he said.

"I've never blamed a referee or a pitch or the weather to explain a bad performance. That's not how you become a top player.

"I need to do more, I need to improve my performances, and I'm fully aware of that.

"That's why I don't want to give you excuses. If I tried to explain it in a logical manner, you might think I'm making excuses for losing. I just want to win."

Chelsea's players are renowned for holding training-ground inquests during a run of bad results.

Malouda said: "We have meetings all the time because we're always trying to improve.

"Of course, under the circumstances and with the bad results we've had recently, we need to focus more but we've not called meetings and tried to look at each other.

"We have technical staff who give us advice and we need to listen to them now.

"We have an experienced squad, players who have won a lot in the past and would expect to win a lot in the near future. We need to use that experience to get back on track. That's it.

"Meetings and long discussions, that's not the way the club's working, that's not the way we've fixed problems in the past."

Malouda refused to reveal exactly what he believes has gone wrong this season but insisted the solution was simple: victories, starting with their crunch Champions League clash at Bayer Leverkusen.

"It's not time for us to point to something in particular," the 31-year-old said.

"We don't feel good when we don't win games: we're a team that's used to winning recently.
"We know how to get back there because we've been there in the past.

"We just want to win and then all the comments will be very positive and we'll become 'the best team in the world'."