Chelsea boss Avram Grant held crisis talks with his players yesterday after their shock FA Cup defeat by Barnsley.

The Guardian says the Israeli summoned his entire first-team squad to training at their Cobham base yesterday, addressing his players in an attempt to discover why his line-up - without Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard who had not travelled to Barnsley as, according to the club, they were injured - failed so miserably against Championship opposition. It was damning that the home goalkeeper Luke Steele's only significant save came after 53 minutes.

Asked afterwards whether he accepted he now has to win one of the two major competitions in which Chelsea are still in contention to keep his job, Grant admitted: "I will accept it. When I am responsible for the team, and when my team loses at Barnsley, there will be many negative things said about it. On the other hand, we have two major competitions left. I am concentrating on them, not other things. But this is a massive disappointment."