In this week's column, former Chelsea star Pat Nevin joins in some big talking points from the weekend's game.

So far this season Luiz Felipe Scolari has shown the patience of a saint towards match officials.

He has been remarkably respectful in the face of some, shall we say, dubious decisions. His attitude has been to be incredibly respectful towards referee and his assistants, but I am beginning to wonder if this honourable attitude is actually working against him and the team.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is not only commendable but also something that has reflected positively on the club as a whole, but some of the decisions in the last few weeks have been beyond belief. The manager may have cracked slightly after a deeply inadequate display by the assistant referee against Arsenal but I suspect I would have lost my cool a lot earlier.

I would like to think I could have laid off the officials until the ridiculously soft sending off Frank Lampard suffered against Bordeaux, but I suspect I wouldn't have got past the baffling performance of the referee in Rome, who thought that Deco deserved to be red carded for simply trying to play football.

The problem is that other managers who are constantly having a go at the officials may have an effect on them, and as such get some of the tight decisions going their way. The referees know that the consequences of irritating certain managers are banner headlines and abuse on the TV, not so with Mr Scolari, well not until now anyway. Do they think he is a soft touch by being so understanding, I really hope not?

If the apology from the officials for Sunday's errors is not forthcoming, I would suggest that it shows a lack of respect towards our manager and as such, why on earth should he continue to be as respectful towards them as he clearly has been so far?

Having said all that, the boss has not been using it as an excuse for recent slip ups by the team, openly pointing out that some performances have not been up to the standard he expects. Certainly Sunday's performance wasn't awful, but not for the first time a team has been able to limit us to very few real chances over 90 minutes at Stamford Bridge.

We have all got our own opinions on the start to this season but I have to say that my attitude has not changed since day one. I have felt all along that if we could get to January and still be in the mix at the top of the league and also still be in the Champions League then the manager had done his job.

Remember he wasn't able to get players he felt were needed because of the transfer window closing. Deco was acquired, though Robinho was spirited away up north, but even so I thought it was better to survive until January rather panic buy then and there, spending too much on second choice players who 'might' have done a job in the short term.

With a month to go until he can make his first real efforts at acquisitions, there is no doubt the team is very much in contention for the title and I just hope that the job will be done against Cluj next week to see us safely through in Europe. Then and only then will we see what Mr Scolari really has in mind for a long-term plan.

There is no doubt he would like to add to his squad, as his options were clearly very limited when change was needed against Arsenal in particular. Teams have on more than one occasion been able to stifle our main threats.

They know that Nicolas Anelka likes a certain type of through ball slipped to him on the ground between the defenders and although he is phenomenal in that area, if you are expecting it and you are a good defender like William Gallas, you can counter it.

Of course a fully fit and available Didier Drogba would have been a fine option but the reliance on Anelka alone while Didier has been injured has been concerning. I suspect that Scolari knew this all along, hence the move for Robinho at the start of the season.

Teams can know about your threat and still struggle to contain them and a feature of the last few weeks has been efforts by opponents to curb our full backs overlapping and causing mayhem. Arsenal may have managed to contain the threat of Bosingwa but Ashley Cole regularly got to the byline on the left hand side, it was just a pity that his crosses failed to fall to the right players from our point of view.

One player you would expect to flourish in these situations is Frank Lampard, but opponents are marking him closely, or more specifically they are using defensive midfielders to choke the space he likes to run into when attacking.

This is of course one of the problems that every top team suffers from, everyone knows them, sees them extremely regularly on TV and they can then come up with plans to counter what have become increasingly well known strengths.

The answer is of course to adapt and change the style or personnel a little to ask some different questions. I expect this will be much easier come January with just a few additions to the squad. In the meantime let's hope we hang on in there with no more calamities, after all, according to most managers, that is when the race for the title really starts in earnest.

Last week I asked for the smallest pitch in the Premier League and most agreed with me that it is The Boleyn Ground that West Ham play on. I sometimes wonder if the statistics that all clubs give out regarding their actual pitch size are entirely accurate.

I suspect one or two may be advertising the entire grassed area and not the pitch alone because the statistics given in different websites give some strange and varying figures. Anyway the winner picked at random was Liyana Sarah Rizal Wong from Kuala Lumpur who will receive a copy of the Deep Blue photo book.

This week to have a chance of winning a DVD of last season's highlights, could you tell me the name of the referee who sent Deco off in Rome. If you can send the name of his optician as well it will help me to know where not to go for my new glasses.

Read more of Pat Nevin's columns here.