I've waited and watched and hoped but so far to no avail. Andriy Shevchenko is a shadow of his former self (at least on the pitch) and that is a very sad bit of news for the world's most beautiful game. The 30 year old Ukrainian is up there with the crème de la crème as far as naturally talented strikers go. He's capable of scoring with both feet, he's an excellent header of the ball and combines strength and fluidity almost effortlessly.

For nearly seven years, Sheva, as he's known, reigned supreme at AC Milan. At the end of last season, when Italy was in the throes of its match fixing scandal, Sheva decided (or his wife decided depending on who you listen to) that it was time to move on. He packed up the aforementioned wife and their young son Jordan and headed to London, where his personal friend and owner of Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich was waiting.

I don't have a lot of time for Abramovich or the way that he runs Chelsea. I honestly, and perhaps somewhat naively, believe that the Russian oligarch is bad for game. Too many players have been swallowed up and chewed out by Chelsea in the last couple of years, buried under the weight of too many rubles. I was hoping that Shevchenko would not be added to that casualty list.

Wishful thinking, for the moment at least. Halfway through the season, Sheva is not playing the kind of football we all know he's capable of. He's not playing that much, full stop. The suspicions that I'd tried to ignore at the start of the season have returned full force.

Chelsea is not the place for Sheva.

The team that makes its home at Stamford Bridge is a textbook example of what too many cooks can do to a perfectly good soup. And for once, Chelsea's egomaniac coach, Jose Mourinho is not to blame.

I predicted several months ago, well before the recent rumors, that Mourinho would leave Chelsea at the end of the season and the reasons are quite straightforward. The so called Special One does not like having his authority undermined. As long as Abramovich was willing to sit back and sign the checks, leaving the real football business to Jose, all was well.

But Abramovich doesn't seem to be content with signing the checks anymore. He approved the sale of French defender, William Gallas to Arsenal, despite Mourinho's protests. Ashley Cole may have come the other way but most pundits agree that it was an appalling bit of business on Chelsea's part.

Shevchenko's arrival was equally contested by Mourinho. His favored tactical system, 4-3-3 does not require a player of Shevchenko's profile. Abramovich was not bothered by this. He paid 45 million pounds to pry Sheva from Milan and thereby obliged, albeit tacitly, Mourinho to adapt his tactics.

It would be one thing if it was working, but it's not.

Chelsea trail Manchester United by six points in the league table and they have played very average football by their own standards. Sheva, the man that guaranteed Milan at least 20 goals a season has not even reached double figures wearing a Chelsea shirt.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suspect that the talent draining aliens from Michael Jordan's animated movie Space Jam were responsible for this extraordinary lack of success. Unfortunately the real explanations are not nearly that lighthearted.

Strikers are famous for having fragile confidence and Shevchenko is no exception. When they are confident, everything they touch turns to gold. Just look at Didier Drogba. Objectively he is nowhere nearly as talented as Sheva, yet this season, Drogba has outscored and outplayed the Ukrainian at every turn.

On it's own, Sheva's slump is nothing unusual. Every striker goes through bad patches at some stage or another of his career. However, the worrying thing is what is being done, or not done in this case, to bring him out of it.

Shevchenko is a player that thrives on trust. He needs to know that his coach and teammates have faith in his ability to contribute to the side and that they will defend him against the criticisms of fans and media alike.

It is the ultimate irony that since his struggle to make a mark on the Premier League, his most vociferous defenders are not his current teammates but his old ones. From Kaka to Clarence Seedorf, several Milan players have gone on record to say that Sheva will eventually find his stride and called for patience on his behalf.

His Chelsea teammates have been conspicuously silent. And why shouldn't they be? A club like Chelsea with so many good players has to deal with that many big egos. It's easy for players to put their own personal agendas ahead of the team.

Mourinho is not the type of manager to stand for that and it's one more reason why he will leave at the end of the season. He's never liked having prima donnas in his teams (namely because he is one himself) and if Abramovich intends going down the Real Madrid Galactico route, Mourinho will not be at the steering wheel.

In the meantime, however, the Special One has got it wrong. He has handled Shevchenko in the worst way possible. Instead of playing Sheva consistently until he recovered his form, Mourinho has had him in and out of the side. For someone who prides himself, on his ability to out psychoanalyze everyone and everything, Mourinho has been quite short sighted.

However, Sheva's problems don't end with Mourinho. Being personal friends with the boss might be a perk in a lot of other situations but in this case it's only hindering Sheva's integration into the team. The British press have already gone so far as to accuse him of spying for Abramovich and revealing dressing room secrets.

His teammates not trusting him is not something that will go away even if Mourinho does leave. And unless and until they do trust him, Shevchenko will never really showcase all of his talent.

Most football observers and pundits want events to back up their predictions. This is one occasion where being able to say I told you so, is definitely not worth it.