Poll: vote for the new Chelsea manager | Debate: were Chelsea right to sack Scolari? | Matt Dickinson: Ghostbuster wanted for London address | Simon Barnes: Chelsea's quick-fix culture | Scolari sacked after meeting Abramovich | Who's next for poisoned chalice? | Divided dressing-room led to difficulties in the boardroom | Joys from Brazil fail to materialise | Giles Smith: Mourinho back at Chelsea? We can but dream | Chelsea's timeline to disaster

The shadow cast over Stamford Bridge is clad in a sharp Armani overcoat.

It is the presence of José Mourinho, whose influence is still being felt 17 months after he was ousted at Chelsea, and could be seen in the sacking of Luiz Felipe Scolari.

It was Mourinho who won trophies with a click of the fingers and made everyone at Chelsea believe that winning the Champions League was just a matter of time. Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, started talking about achieving the feat twice by the end of the decade. It was Mourinho who raised expectations in the stands so high that a home draw against Hull City could provoke banners demanding the removal of a World Cup-winning manager.

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Ghost of Mourinho haunts Stamford Bridge

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Who's next for poisoned chalice at the Bridge?

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• From Jose Mourinho's removal to Luiz Felipe Scolari's sacking: Chelsea's timeline to disaster

• Luiz Felipe Scolari under fire as alarm bells ring out for Chelsea

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Cling to fourth place? Under the Portuguese, second was a calamity and it is the cult of Mourinho that continues to dominate the dressing-room. Whether or not Scolari’s training sessions were old-fashioned, as some Chelsea players claim, and his tactics lacking in rigour, they have certainly been perceived to be outmoded compared with those of Mourinho.

Didier Drogba, perhaps the most important player at the club given the reliance on a one-striker system, has been in a long sulk ever since the day Mourinho departed to Italy.

John Terry will not have meant any slight on Scolari but it spoke rather loudly last week when, asked who was the best manager he had worked with, the captain responded with the name of the Portuguese.

If the squad has needed an overhaul, Chelsea themselves have needed the exorcism of the ghost of the Special One. Big Phil was thought to be the man with the personality to eradicate the cult of José, to lead the club into a new era. Not an easy job in any circumstances but particularly hard when he was joining a club who were rather different to the one they showed him in the brochure.

Scolari thought that he was coming to a Chelsea where if he asked for Robinho he got him rather than watching the Brazil player disappear off to Manchester City.

But instead of a dream job, with money no object, he found a club where the funds had dried up, not least because the owner harboured his own doubts about Scolari’s appointment. Roman Abramovich was personally set on luring Carlo Ancelotti from AC Milan — and may yet be again this summer — and he never attempted to get to know Scolari or to understand his methodology.

The Brazilian revealed as much recently when he disclosed that he barely saw or spoke to the owner. “I’ve spoken with Roman only three or four times,” he said last month in response to questions about whether the oligarch might sell up at Stamford Bridge.

This half-hearted backing of Scolari needs bearing in mind before, in the English fashion, we dismiss him as a failure.

He may have been the World Cup-winner who could not overcome Hull. The man who could light the fire in Ronaldo and Ronaldinho and yet barely coax a jog out of Florent Malouda.

He may have been sacked before he could do any more damage, chased out before his team could be humiliated by Watford or embarrassed by Claudio Ranieri’s Juventus.

He may be the man who reignited Abramovich’s passion for Chelsea, but only by extinguishing all hope that the team might win a trophy this season.

His reign has been a huge disappointment for those of us who thought that he might bring some joy, some panache to Chelsea and he must take some of the blame. Seven years out of the club game proved a greater weakness than many of us had anticipated.

But his biggest problem was that he arrived at a club which, thanks to Mourinho, thought that it had cracked it — that it was a member of the elite and trophies would come as a matter of course.

It all seemed so easy under the Special One that Abramovich started believing that if you fell out with the manager, you could always sack him — and simply reach up to pick another one from off the tree.

Decisive action marks great from the good

What makes a great manager such as Fabio Capello? Why has he won trophies everywhere he has travelled? We found out a little more in a story told by Stuart Pearce last week.

Recalling England’s victory over Andorra last September in the first of their World Cup qualifiers, Pearce took us back to half-time in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. It is 0-0 against the team ranked 186th in the world and England are being jeered. As they walk towards the dressing-room, Capello beckons over Pearce, one of his assistants. “What do you think we should do?” Capello inquires.

“Get them to move the ball faster,” Pearce replies. “And give it another ten minutes.”

Capello listens, thanks Pearce for the advice and then marches into the dressing-room. “You off,” he barks at Stewart Downing. “You too,” at Jermain Defoe. “You two on,” he instructs Joe Cole and Emile Heskey. And, ten minutes later, it is Cole who has put England two goals into the lead.

And therein lies the substantive difference between the competent and those who excel. Pearce knew what was wrong — England were passing the ball too slowly and changes were almost certainly necessary — but he needed reassurance. “A great manager spots the trouble before it happens,” Pearce said, candidly.

The tale brought back memories of Steve McClaren. We ridiculed him and told him “you don’t know what you’re doing”. But he knew football well enough to coach Manchester United to the treble and Middlesbrough to a Uefa Cup final. And he knew that he probably had to make a change as England were leading Russia in the crucial Euro 2008 qualifier in Moscow.

He sensed the pressure brewing, the strain on England’s left-hand side as Joleon Lescott was sucked in and Joe Cole playing at left back. He even discussed it with his coaches.

Then, under unbearable pressure, he uttered the fateful — and in a professional sense, suicidal — words “let’s give it a bit longer”. Soon after he lost his job. And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between him and Capello, a man who will never say “let’s give it ten minutes”.

The names not in the frame

It being Chelsea, the betting lists are comprised of names such as Roberto Mancini, Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and Gianfranco Zola. Apart from the fact that neither is foreign, is there something wrong with David Moyes or Martin O’Neill?