Football: Vialli's focus increased by tactical error

HAVING ADMITTED a strategic error against Leicester City on Sunday that may eventually cost the Premiership title, Chelsea's player-manager, Gianluca Vialli, needs to make sure his tactics are all right on the night for the European Cup-Winners' Cup semi-final, second leg, at Real Mallorca this evening.

With the score level at 1-1, a sensible starting point would be to revert to the 4-4-2 system that the players have grown comfortable with during a season in which they have lost only five games out of 50 in all competitions. The Leicester match was the first time Vialli had switched to 3-5-2 since an away game at Derby in December, when a late equaliser also cost two points. Victories over the two East Midlands teams would have sent Chelsea into tonight's tie as Premiership leaders.

Their ambitions are now concentrated on becoming the first club to retain the Cup-Winners' Cup which they will keep if they can win the final at Villa Park next month, and securing a Champions' League place for the first time - preferably by finishing as Premiership runners-up and so avoiding the qualifying round in August.

Of tonight's game in the modest Lluis Sitjar stadium, he said: "We play away with almost the same attitude as at home. We want to go out and impose ourselves. It would be fantastic if we could take advantage of our first couple of chances. It's 50-50 or maybe 40-60 in Mallorca's favour because of the result in the first leg."

Their chances will be improved if the Spaniard Albert Ferrer is moved back to his proper position of right-back, where he has been outstanding all season, rather than having his one weakness - a lack of height - exposed in the centre. Marcel Desailly and Franck Leboeuf ought to be capable of dealing with Mallorca's big, strong centre-forward, Dani, although Leboeuf yesterday owned up to his part in allowing the striker a goal in the first leg before Tore Andre Flo rescued Chelsea with an equaliser.

Franck by name and frank by nature, the Frenchman also admitted that tiredness stemming from the physical and emotional effort of winning the World Cup last June has caught up with him on occasions, notably against Leicester.

"On Sunday I was ashamed because in the last 20 minutes I couldn't run," he said. "People paid for their tickets and I couldn't give 100 per cent for them. I've said to the PFA [Professional Footballers' Association] we have to change something about the fixtures because it's a nightmare and it's getting worse. To play 50 games every year without even one month's holiday is impossible."

Chelsea supporters will be grateful to hear that a workload to which generations of British players have become accustomed will not deter their popular defender from signing a new contract in June. It had been suggested that he wanted a king's - or a World Cup-winner's - ransom to do so, but yesterday he insisted he would not "burgle" the fans, many of whom have been shocked by the hike in season ticket prices. He is even talking of staying in London once his career is over.

Tonight Vialli must get the personnel right as well as the tactics. Dennis Wise has been given the rather grudging blessing of Uefa, football's European governing body, to play despite demonstrating his unusual appetites in the home leg and Gustavo Poyet will add an extra dimension to the attack in a game in which Chelsea must score. Vialli will probably pick himself ahead of Flo as he has done for the most recent European games. His other important decision is how badly Ed de Goey would be handicapped by playing in goal with a broken toe on his kicking foot.

Like Vialli's team, Mallorca did not have the best preparation for the game, losing 2-1 to Barcelona after conceding two early goals. Held to a draw in two of their three home matches in this first season of European football, they could fall between two stools if inclined merely to sit back and counter-attack. Leicester may yet have done Chelsea, and Vialli, a favour by eliminating any complacency about supposedly inferior opposition.

Chelsea (probable): De Goey; Ferrer, Leboeuf, Desailly, Le Saux; Petrescu (or Babayaro), Di Matteo, Wise, Poyet; Vialli, Zola.