Luiz Felipe Scolari flopped at Chelsea because of his ancient training methods, it is claimed.

Club officials as well as players had their doubts over Scolari very early on. The first concerns surfaced within days of him taking charge.

A senior Chelsea source told the News of the World: "You could see eyebrows being raised over Scolari's methods even in the first days of pre-season training at Cobham. Under Jose Mourinho, pre-season was tough but the players came away buzzing afterwards.

"But that went out the window with Scolari. He had the players running around the pitches. It was a throwback to the 1980s.There was a lot of grumbling in corners that his methods weren't working properly and that the manager was old-fashioned and out of date."