Scolari, you are the best!

Chelsea travelled north knowing that the squad would be severely depleted for the fixture against Middlesbrough, Luiz Felipe Scolari refused to be fazed by the situation instead concentrating on the abilities of those he could choose.

It was a ploy that was to pay off as Chelsea comfortably out-played a very poor Middlesbrough side to emerge 5-0 victors.

In his post match interview Scolari played down any thoughts of Chelsea being title favourites, instead he opted to praise those who had come in and done such a magnificent job.

Here`s what he had to say,

'I think I have a group. I lost five or six but the other players did very well. It showed we have 23, 24 players that we need to believe in."

'They have a spirit. They want to play every game, if injured or not. They showed this to the other players."

'We have a long way to win the Premier League. We were working very hard in pre-season with these players, they all know what they want.'

On the other hand, the Middlesbrough manager, Gareth Southgate, was left to try and pluck some crumbs of comfort from a performance that he surely didn`t see coming.

After winning away from home the previous week, Southgate had every reason to expect his side to run us close, but it never happened, instead he was left to ruefully reflect, commenting,

'It's a humiliation and hard to take. It's a humbling experience for us. There's a danger when you play a side of Chelsea's class that this can happen. I don't think they had to be at their best, but they annihilated us."

'We were very poor and I think it showed us that, as a group, we're very young and we're not at a level to compete with a side like that at the moment, especially with us having people missing. The fact is they are in a different league to us."

'We've made bad mistakes and we didn't look like we had belief, but the reality is we have been outclassed.''

Sobering words for the rest of the Premier League to take note of as Chelsea look to regain that Premier League crown.