Ranieri's system has little logic

Soccer/European Champions League/Chelsea 0; Besiktas 2: Besiktas had 10 men for most of the second half but Chelsea's full complement of footballers were too agitated to retrieve a 2-0 deficit.

They will now have to start again in Group G and this first defeat of the season should make them rethink the exotic attitude they are applying.

The crowd suspected for a while that they might have to make do with tactics for entertainment, but the reality was much worse.

They had only 25 minutes pondering Claudio Ranieri's 3-1-4-2 system before the visitors had them staring aghast at the figures on the scoreboard. Besiktas assumed the lead and then doubled it four minutes later.

Ranieri's variations, half mischief and half cunning, no longer seemed so endearingly idiosyncratic. It was no longer academic to ask why Damien Duff was not on the left when the Turkish champions, with a trio of centre-backs, looked as if they would be susceptible to attacks down the wings. This, too, was the first occasion when Chelsea's squad rotation looked more of a cult than a policy.

Where was the benefit of conjuring up a three-man defence when the unfamiliarity of the formation had each man in it looking vague?

The opener made Chelsea fans flinch at the sheer ease of its creation. Ilhan Mansiz, shaping to thump a free-kick, slid a pass to Ibrahim on the left instead and his cut-back was struck home by Sergen Yalcin, with the aid of a deflection off John Terry.

The scorer is a playmaker commonly accused of fitfulness. Here, however, he was to keep on punishing Chelsea, even if Ranieri's men also hurt themselves. The second goal had a comic-blundering air.

The goalkeeper Oscar Cordoba hit a long kick, Marcel Desailly fell over and Carlo Cudicini, in one of those erratic moments that sabotage an otherwise solid reputation, came dashing out to miss the ball completely.

Yalcin restored tidiness to the scene by tucking the ball into the net. He thus gave even greater weight to the theory that he will face England in Istanbul this month.

Chelsea reacted with an enraged flair which did not quite get them on to the scoresheet. After 42 minutes Hernan Crespo's backheel freed Wayne Bridge, who had replaced the injured Celestine Babayaro, and only a slight touch on the cross by the head of Zago distracted Frank Lampard from finishing.

Chelsea had never been entirely quiescent. There had been a less pardonable mis-hit by Lampard in the 21st minute and, shortly before that, Juan Sebastian Veron also miscued when a one-two with Crespo and the break of the ball from a defender had put him in prime position.

Nonetheless this was a Chelsea team who had made Ranieri's theories seem limited from the kick-off. The team did not cohere or probe Besiktas's weaknesses persistently enough. The visitors, guided by the shrewd and conservative Mircea Lucescu, had their own means of reproaching a coach who may not have taken them seriously enough.

The opposition were also to show themselves prone to erratic ways, however. Before the disbelieving eyes of everyone, Mansiz, who had been booked for kicking the ball away just before the interval, committed the same offence five minutes after the restart.

The forward pleaded that he had not heard the whistle for offside before shooting into the net, but the referee was unimpressed. This was a fixture with a stubborn wish to stay ludicrous.

William Gallas had to remain in the fray despite an injury that gave him an ever more pronounced limp. With Bridge already on and a new striking partnership of Duff and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink introduced at the interval, Ranieri could make no more substitutions.

The irony of such constraints, at a club with so extensive a squad, carried no humour for the Chelsea fans. They did welcome the attacks by a side restored to a 4-4-2, and Besiktas were careworn. There was a yellow card for Federico Giunti, so protracted was his departure when giving way to Yasin Sulun.

As Veron had proved by heading over Bridge's cross in the 59th minute, the pressure was also hampering Chelsea.

CHELSEA: Cudicini, Babayaro (Bridge 23), Makelele, Desailly, Mutu (Duff 45), Lampard, Gallas, Geremi, Veron, Crespo (Hasselbaink 45), Terry. Subs Not Used: Ambrosio, Johnson, Cole, Gudjohnsen. Booked: Mutu.

BESIKTAS: Cordoba, Asik, Havutcu, Guiaro, Pancu, Yalcin (Hassan 81), Uzulmez, Giunti (Sulun 68), Mansiz, Zago, Koc (Dobra 60). Subs Not Used: Kursunlu, Yildirim, Dursun, Metin. Sent Off: Mansiz (50). Booked: Mansiz, Havutcu, Giunti, Yalcin, Zago. Goals: Yalcin 25, 29.

Referee: L Batista (Portugal).