Luiz Felipe Scolari issued a positive new year's message yesterday after weeks of turmoil at Stamford Bridge by claiming that his players love him.

The Chelsea manager compared the feelings within his dressing-room to that of a family and said that his popularity with his players stems from his affable character and insistence on defending them in public, with John Terry, the captain, describing Scolari as being like a friend to his squad.

“The players like me, love me, because I defend them every day and give my best for them every day,” Scolari said. “I never, never say, 'You or you or you are wrong.' It is always our mistake. They don't come in and say, 'I love you,' but I feel my relationship with my players. Your wife does not come in every day and say, 'I love you', but you know she loves you. You know your players love you, like you, because we've had situations inside where it is possible to know this.”

Scolari told his players in a team meeting on Tuesday that the mistakes that led to the 2-2 draw away to Fulham last weekend cannot be repeated and claims that they have responded effectively in training this week.

“The spirit is different because we looked at the last game,” he said. “The statistics showed Fulham had one corner and scored one goal. In the last minute there are nine inside the box and we made a mistake. This season we have made mistakes at corner kicks three or four times.

"Now is the time to prepare to train so we don't make more mistakes like before.In training in the last three or four days there was a fantastic spirit.”

Chelsea face Southend United in the FA Cup today and Scolari will be without several players. Terry and Michael Ballack are suspended, José Bosingwa is nursing an injury and Petr Cech is rested, leaving Scolari to call-up Lee Sawyer, 19, Jeffrey Bruma, 17, and recall Michael Mancienne, 20, from his loan spell at Wolverhampton Wanderers. Carlo Cudicini, Juliano Belletti, Paulo Ferreira and Salomon Kalou will be given rare starts as Chelsea seek to avoid a repeat of this season's early Carling Cup exit to Burnley, or last season's humiliating FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Barnsley.

Dougie Freedman, the Southend and former Crystal Palace forward, who has faced Chelsea twice at Stamford Bridge, insists that he will approach the tie “like you would any other game”. He said: “When the game starts we aren't going to suddenly become the best team in the world, but we want to give a good account of ourselves.”