Roman Abramovich, not Rafa Benitez, is the real villain

Eleven days in and Chelsea and Rafa Benitez remain locked in a loveless marriage. They tried a weekend trip away from home to see if they could kindle some passion but it backfired badly. Benitez is now caught in the perfect storm of fans' protests, poor results and an alarming absence of fighting spirit amongst the players.

All the resilience and unity that helped Chelsea survive challenges against Barcelona and Bayern Munich to win the Champions League have disappeared. They undoubtedly miss the leadership of the injured John Terry but the problems run deeper. Their confidence is brittle, their

second-half collapse at a crowing, bubble-filled Upton Park raising legitimate questions about their character as well as well as Benitez's ability to motivate them.

Afterwards, Benitez's press conference felt like a lock-in at a morgue, a grim post-mortem on a cadaver of a display. Echoes arise of Chelsea during the early days of Claudio Ranieri with fans still grieving for Luca Vialli. More worryingly for Benitez, faint echoes could also be heard of Brian Clough's brief stay at Leeds United.

Benitez can talk about the squad lacking depth yet he was able to send on Brazil's No10 (Oscar) and one of the rising stars of German football (Marko Marin), both elegant additions to a squad good enough to become champions of Europe seven months ago. The fact remains that Benitez was outwitted by Sam Allardyce, achieving so much more with lesser resources.

Benitez said he could invigorate Fernando Torres but the No?9 was again a shadow of his old Liverpool self, creating Juan Mata's goal but extending his scoreless run in the Premier League to 12hrs 19mins.

Benitez said that they were improving, that two stalemates against Manchester City and Fulham indicated that he had tightened the defence. Chelsea fans took the two clean sheets and painted "Rafa Out" on them. They sang mournfully about Roberto Di Matteo. Some probably joined in when the jubilant West Ham fans started chirruping towards Benitez that he was getting "sacked in the morning".

Anything is possible in the court of Roman Abramovich. One popular joke doing the rounds of Twitter-land reads: "So excited - only three more Chelsea managers until Christmas." Cruel.

Anger over the defenestration of Di Matteo guaranteed an ambush of a welcome for an interim first-team manager who has often divided opinion. To his admirers, Benitez is the professor of tactical cunning cum laude who masterminded Liverpool's 2005 Champions League triumph. To his detractors, he was fortunate that Steven Gerrard delivered a superhuman second-half performance in Istanbul. An ill-fated stint at Inter Milan damaged his reputation.

He is an easy target, unwanted by the fans because of comments he made about them during his Anfield days, and because of resentment over the treatment of Di Matteo. Benitez can hardly be blamed for accepting a lucrative, short-term contract from the champions of Europe. The real target of the fans' ire should be Abramovich. It is the Russian who ludicrously dismissed Di Matteo, who decided that Chelsea would do better under a man that the fans reviled. Here's your new manager. From a Russian, without love.

Supporters castigate Benitez but have yet to vent their disapproval at the man who bankrolls their club. So a slide under Di Matteo becomes a slump under Benitez. Two points out of nine under the Spaniard makes it seven games without a win in the Premier League, Chelsea's worst run in17 years.

There are two sides to every story, and two sides in every game. West Ham deserve immense praise for showing huge character, fighting back when they looked in for an afternoon of prolonged pain when the marvellous Mata was weaving his magic in the opening half, playing one-twos with Eden Hazard, running rings around the deep-lying midfielder James Tomkins even scoring after 13 minutes. Chelsea's full-backs, Ashley Cole and Cesar Azpilicueta were also flying.

Allardyce responded brilliantly at the break, wresting the initiative back from Benitez. Tomkins's shadow-chasing labours ended. Mohamed Diame charged on to give a storming 45 minutes, blotting out Mata and giving West Ham the platform for their epic comeback.

Allardyce also sent on Matt Taylor who joined Matt Jarvis in attacking the space behind Cole and Azpilicueta. Chelsea were forced deep and they simply could not cope with West Ham's greater urgency, tempo and desire.

A few inspiring words from Allardyce turned Carlton Cole from a middleweight into a heavyweight, bullying Branislav Ivanovic through fair means and foul. Cole climbed all over the Chelsea centre-back in equalizing just after the hour. Then Diame struck. Then Allardyce's final change, introducing Modibo Maiga for Cole, paid immediate dividends when the substitute made it 3-1. The bubble-machine had almost run dry by the end.

Defeat will hurt all at Chelsea. Their fans' enmity towards West Ham is now speckled with embarrassment after a first defeat to them since 2003. The loss will wound Benitez, who was outwitted by one of his betes noires of the dugout jungle.

Allardyce was very diplomatic, studiously avoiding any comment that could be construed as helping nudge Benitez towards the abyss yet he must have enjoyed it. Benitez has never been high on the Christmas-card list of many Premier League managers.

So where do Chelsea go from here? They return to Cobham on Monday, getting down to training with Benitez talking about the need for "working hard". They return to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday for Champions League tie against Nordsjaelland, knowing that rancour, not reconciliation, is in the air. Benitez needs to start winning fast.