Michael Ballack plays his part in Chelsea defeat inquest

Michael Ballack has revealed his part in the dressing room inquest that followed Chelsea’s latest away day defensive disaster.

Back-to-back defeats on the road at Wigan and now Aston Villa have put a massive question mark over Chelsea’s title credentials.

And Ballack, absent through injury at the weekend, believes it was an obligation on him as a senior professional to talk through the set-piece blunders and ensure they are put right for their Champions League clash with Atletico Madrid.

Ballack said: “I wasn’t involved, not in the team, but I know the problem.

“I was there on Sunday and we spoke about it. Everybody has to make an impact on the situation, me too.

“We sat down together at Cobham and watched the game. We saw who made the mistakes. We’ve spoken about the game, we’ve trained on set-pieces and special situations, but it’s all about individual mistakes.

“That happens in football, but that’s what we have to cut out.”

And Ballack, 33, added: “We speak with each other. We have no problem criticising each other in the dressing room. A good team with strong players has to do this.

"We’ve done that, then we shake hands and get back on to the training pitch and try to do better.

“As a senior player it is my duty to say something, absolutely. I have to do this - and  not just because of my age.

“I have a few years behind me and have experienced a few situations. I’m experienced, so I have to speak to help the team. Everybody has to take responsibility, otherwise we will concede more goals.

“Everyone has to improve his movement, his defensive organisation in the box. It’s a point of personal attitude - don’t concede a goal. We can train a lot of things, but if someone falls asleep in a situation, we concede.”

German ace Ballack’s frank admissions after the 2-1 Villa Park debacle received the seal of approval from manager Carlo Ancelotti, who believes that honest confrontations are the only way to sort problems out.

Ancelotti is without Jose Bosingwa and John Obi Mikel through injury and the suspended Didier Drogba tonight, while Joe Cole, Yuri Zhirkov and Brazilian centre-half Alex are still not ready for a first team start.

But the former AC Milan boss, who smiled at the mention of skipper John Terry’s frenzied anger at James Collins’ match-winner for Villa, insists that open debate among his players is exactly what is needed - as long as they learn the right lessons.

Ancelotti said: “Altogether we have to learn that set-piece situations are very important in matches and we have to pay attention to them.

“A lot of teams play on these situations, so we have to pay more attention to them. From every experience, we have to learn.

“What is important is that the players speak about these situations and talk together about things that might go wrong. With this, we can improve.

“When I was at Milan, with players like Maldini, Nesta, Seedorf, Gattuso and Kaka, they did this.

“Usually I like to speak with the players. We did the same in Milan. I have always believed the players have to take responsibility.

“We are working together to arrive together at our aim - which is to win. We have the same way here. In this dressing room there are a lot of players with strong personalities. You need that and it is very important.”

Ancelotti has spent the past three days working on the set-piece deficiencies - an uncomfortable parallel to the problems that started to undermine Luiz Felipe Scolari’s doomed regime last term - but hinted at where the blame game was going.

The Italian added: “On the set-pieces we have two players, one on each post. One player is in front of the near post - that is Frank Lampard. And five players to mark, man for man.

“Everybody has their own responsibility - to mark, to stay in his zone or go for the ball. Everybody has a job and a responsibility, everyone. Not just one player. It is very important that every player takes responsibility for what happens in our box.”

That suggested Lampard, Ricardo Carvalho, Drogba and Petr Cech were in the firing line on Sunday, although quizzed directly about the Czech keeper, Ancelotti added: “Petr is in good condition.

“Petr has had a fantastic approach to when he plays. He takes a lot of risks because he likes to go up and catch the ball. But I like this. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I want him to go and catch the ball in the air.

“I know John Terry was very angry on Saturday but I was the same. We were all disappointed at what happened. Not only John Terry but also the other players.

“We have to pay attention on set-plays. We have to improve. You can play good matches, like we did at Aston Villa, but if you don’t pay attention for six seconds - for one set-play - you come away with a bad result. This is not good.

“In my opinion, we have to lose a game when we play a bad game, not a good one - and we didn’t play poorly at Aston Villa.

“So now we need to put in a good match against Atletico - and we have to win it. We want to win this group and this is a good opportunity for us to go close to doing that.”