Vialli's Chelsea conundrum

Marseilles manager Bernard Casoni must have felt like shooting the messenger. On his return from Stamford Bridge on Saturday night, whoever the scout was he had sent to watch Chelsea and report back must have presented a sheet of A4 paper with nothing on it bar a great big question mark. Because, just as they have been all season long, Chelsea were a conundrum on Saturday.

What can be said with authority about a side which extended its unbeaten sequence to 13 games, which now lies fifth in the league 11 points behind Manchester United and which today fly out to France to begin the next stage of the Champions' League, but which deserved to lose against Watford after being not only out-fought by Graham Taylor's admirable team but also out-thought and frequently outpassed? World Cup winners such as Marcel Desailly and Didier Deschamps were made to look prosaic by virtual unknowns like Allan Smart and Micah Hyde.

Despite this and other impressive Watford features - the performance of Peter Kennedy as an attacking left back reinforced the belief that the Portadown man's left foot rivals those of Stephen McPhail and Ian Harte as the sweetest in Ireland - Chelsea still stumbled their way to triumph.

Football's cliche factory insists that this is the sign of a good, maybe great side, the ability to win while playing badly, but in Chelsea's case this cannot go unchallenged. Watford, let's not forget, are 11 points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Premiership, and arrived at Stamford Bridge without an away win since beating Liverpool at Anfield. It remains their one win on their travels. That's a lot of quiet bus journeys home.

Blue was their colour again on Saturday night. The Chelsea players, meanwhile, quickstepped onto Fulham Broadway with thoughts of southern France and European glory on their mind. They will not have to deal with Watford upstarts for a while.

A similar scenario in early December must have produced comparable emotions in Gianluca Vialli and his expensively assembled squad. Then, leaving the north-east after being thumped 4-1 at Sunderland, and having been roundly criticised for their approach to domestic football, Chelsea flew off to Rome two days later and drew 0-0 with Lazio in the intimidating Olympic Stadium. A certain dichotomy was becoming apparent.

Evidence of that had been seen before, and Watford had actually been an essential ingredient of the pattern. Immediately prior to Chelsea's trips to Hertha Berlin, Galatasaray, AC Milan and then Lazio, Vialli's side lost in the Premiership: at Watford in September, at Liverpool in October, at home to Arsenal and Nwankwo Kanu in the same month and then at Sunderland in December.

After each domestic defeat, however, only in Berlin did a European one follow. Some accused Chelsea of schizophrenia, but that is an illness. This felt like a deliberate policy on Vialli's behalf.

Now they can say they bucked the trend, but it was thanks to the woodwork and Ed De Goey. Marseilles, despite beating Man United in a Champions' League group match, lie only five points away from the relegation zone in the French League. Chelsea should prosper again. Frank Lebouef, Chris Sutton and Dennis Wise, none of whom played on Saturday, will all be back. For Desailly and Deschamps, it will be a return to the club where they won and then lost the 1993 European Cup.

And as long as Chelsea do survive and prosper, more pressing issues, such as the club's enormous - possibly too great - outlay on wages, transfer fees and stadium reconstruction will be kept within Ken Bates's office. The impatience of supporters at Vialli's attitude toward the Premiership will be similarly suppressed.

"It depends," is one of Vialli's favourite answers to questions he does not like. He was at it again on Saturday when he was pressed about his own situation tomorrow. Vialli was sent off for arguing with the fourth official in that game in Rome and is banned from appearing on the touchline. He is even banned from turning up at half-time in the dressingroom to encourage his team.

Graham Rix, now that his parole has ended, is allowed out of the country for the first time. For much of the Watford match Rix stood directly in front of Vialli, the Italian peering over his shoulder like a frustrated cinemagoer. "It depends," said Vialli when asked if he would be keeping in touch with Rix by telephone in Marseilles.

"It doesn't really matter," he said, before adding: "It might matter. It will be up to Graham Rix or Ray Wilkins to say the final things. I've got plenty of confidence in them. There is a perfect understanding between the three of us."

It is just as well someone understands what is going on at Chelsea.