Crafty British broadsheet identifies the vandal in the Chelsea line up who ruined all their dreams

The young men at the Guardian’s daily football email The Fiver, though over-educated and known to get through eight pints of sarcasm of an evening, have put their weakness for detective drama to good use for once. They have cleverly deconstructed Chelsea’s season and in a piece of deduction worthy of the great Christie - that’s the crone Agatha, not the seventies pop group responsible for Yellow River - to reveal the malign spirit putrefying the core of CFC. If you wish the identity of the villain to be revealed, read on.

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“As Avram Grant drags his surly also-rans up to Goodison Park for tonight’s tryst with Everton - a match that’s been rendered as meaningless as zgfhzxkagkatyg by Chelsea’s flower show against Wigan on Monday - there’s one key question the Fiver feels compelled to answer: who is Chelsea’s weakest link? Before considering the evidence, we can, of course, rule out two unlikely suspects: England wonder Joe Cole, whose omission from the starting line-up against Wigan is the rusty iron bar with which manager Grant has mostly been beaten this week; and John Terry, the club’s biggest earner and the hero who only last Thursday proudly identified himself as central to Chelsea’s success, righteously simpering that Arsenal collapsed because they lack “an English spine”.

So who’s to blame? Foreign flops such as Andriy Shevchenko, Michael Ballack and Florent Malouda? Serial whinger Didier Drogba, who may or may not be as confused about which club he wants to play for as card magnet Mikel John Obi once was? Grant, who took over when Chelsea were fifth in the league and threatened with European elimination and has since hauled them up to second and the semi-finals of Big Cup?

Allow the Fiver to tidy itself up so it looks as criminally dishevelled as Columbo and it will reveal the answer …

The fact, bored readers, is that only one player has started all of Chelsea’s most flaccid performances: Monday’s Wigan let-down; the equally shambolic home draw with Rosenborg that cost the Special One his job; the 0-0 ordeal against Fulham; the Carling Cup disgrace against Spurs; the 4-4 fiasco with those same Spurs; the league
humblings by Manchester United, Arsenal and Aston Villa; and, of course, the FA Cup humiliation by Barnsley. The player in question?

Why, it couldn’t be … yes! It’s none other than England’s Brave John Terry who, far from being the proud owner of a mighty English backbone, is merely blessed with one hell of a brass neck.”