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Newspaper reports

The Observer, Amy Lawrence: "Not so long ago, Didier Drogba was the cartoon villain of Stamford Bridge. For anyone not of a Chelsea persuasion, the Ivory Coast striker’s penchant for theatrics, for moaning, for sulking, made him difficult to warm to. Now, certainly in the context of some of his less wholesome team-mates, he is nothing but admirable."

Sunday Telegraph, Gerry Cox: "Although it looked ultimately like a comfortable victory for Chelsea against a club who were almost bankrupted last week, Cardiff showed no paucity of grit or effort and for the best part of an hour threatened to upset the cup-holders."

Sunday Times, Jonathan Northcroft: "Of one Cole, too much is exposed. Of another, not enough is being seen. Nude footage of Ashley Cole was sent to the phone of a glamour model and he is unable to explain how it got there it but another mystery at Chelsea is: what is happening with Joe Cole?"

Official Chelsea FC Website: "The defence of the FA Cup continues but Chelsea were made to work hard by a Cardiff side that gave as good as they got in the first half."

The goals

2′ Drogba 1-0
34′ Chopra 1-1
51′ Ballack 2-1
69′ Sturridge 3-1
86′ Kalou 4-1

The preamble

I am writing this preamble before the match, without the benefit of hindsight.

I wrote the match reports for both our 3rd round win over Watford, and our 4th round win over Preston. So I was not surprised when Nick asked me to write this one. I suspect that, like most Chelsea supporters I know, Nick is deeply superstitious. So having me cover the cup ties is like players not shaving on match days or doing the hula-hula before they come out of the tunnel. We shall see whether this particular lucky charm works today.

A big part of me does not want to watch this match. I am still upset by our clueless, gutless display in the 2-1 defeat to Everton on Wednesday, which may well cost us the title. And when I get that upset I prefer not to watch Chelsea for a while as it is just not worth the frustration. But ho hum.

Cardiff, apparently, are crippled by injuries and you can only get odds of 1.17 on a Chelsea win this Saturday morning but my prediction is that, on recent form, we will just about scrape it.

Our cup record against Cardiff is in fact extremely poor. They have won all three of our ties against them, two in the FA Cup. Strangely, I remember our last defeat against them – in the League Cup in 1986 – quite well. Because they were only in the Fourth Division then and it was the first clue we had that John Hollins and Ernie Walley were about to demoralize, and then go on to destroy, the fine team built by John Neal around Dixon, Speedie, Spackman and Nevin.

The team

Carlo Ancelotti actually named the team on Friday:

Hilario, Ferreira, Alex, Carvalho, Zhirkov, Lampard, Mikel, Ballack, Sturridge, Joe Cole, Drogba.

There are pluses and minuses in this selection for me. Ferreira in for Ivanovic is one plus. For me, Ivan has been the player of the season so far and we need to rest him for the bigger games coming up. The inclusion of Mikel (who has been outstanding recently) and Sturridge are two more pluses, and as soon as I saw Drogba’s name on the team sheet I sighed with relief.

Carvalho – one of our worst players on Wednesday night – is a minus, and so are Ballack, Alex and Joe Cole. I simply don’t understand why Ancelotti doesn’t play Bruma, Matic, Kakuta or Borini in a game like this – how else are players like those four going to get the match experience they will need for next season if we don’t play them against Cardiff reserves?

The formation was the familiar 4-1-4-1 off the ball, changing to 4-1-2-3 on the ball.

The game

Some contributors on this blog have diagnosed me as having bipolar disorder, a serious psychiatric malady in which the patient can switch from manic elation to suicidal depression in just a few seconds. Evidence for these mental health issues was there in plenty during the first three minutes of this game. I noticed immediately that Cardiff had borrowed Everton’s tactics: playing high up the field with fierce physical challenges, harrying and hustling all the way. Carvalho immediately started flapping and after just 80 seconds played a pass straight to the Cardiff forwards who went galloping into our penalty area. Just as I was settling down for a re-run of Wednesday night’s shambles, the Drog’s Bollocks scored. With two minutes on the clock John Obi Mikel played a long ball into space for Drogs to chase and he flicked it past the keeper’s left. Brilliant! But game over? Not a chance.

Going 1-0 up was the cue for Ballack to go to sleep, Joe Cole to start wasting possession, Carvalho to keep on flapping, and for Alex to start playing like a gorilla on barbiturates. Cardiff stuck to their game plan and went on to dominate the rest of the half. David Jones must have been watching the Everton match and decided that Zhirkov was another weak link as many attacks developed down their right wing.

A citation for John Obi Mikel. He was simply immense today and, at times, seemed to be holding the team together this half with his positional sense, short-passing, and hard tackling. And he is still only 22 years old. What a player he can be.

Alex was booked for holding back Bothroyd on nine minutes, who would have gone through on goal otherwise. While Percy, who was struggling against Chopra, managed to execute a somersault after a perfectly fair tackle and got Chopra booked. Shame on him.

Two corners were narrowly cleared in the 10th and 12th minute with our defence apparently staring in amazement as the ball sailed over their heads onto an opposition forehead. Hilario did well to save a great shot that came back in from Gerrard.

I kept staring at the screen trying to work why we struggle against limited, but hard-working, muscular teams. And I think I know why. If a terrorist like Jay Bothroyd or a terrier like Louis Saha gets stuck into our centre-backs our team gets nervous and gives away possession. Going forward into a packed opposition we seem to have a problem moving through the middle from the centre circle to the penalty area. Time and again we lost possession in that space. With an on-form Anelka and Malouda there then there isn’t a problem. With an off-form Joe Cole or Malouda us supporters quickly develop bipolar disorder.

The equaliser came from yet another set-piece – the 16th we’ve conceded this season. To Alex’s complete surprise the ball was lofted in to the penalty area to Chopra, at which point – several seconds too late – Alex decided to stop running and play him offside. Chopra will probably never head in an easier goal.

Just to remind you what Carlo said after our last set-piece concession against mighty Hull City:

“Yes, I know very well how many goals we’ve conceded from set-pieces. Every team in England has a good jumper, a good striker and it can happen that teams score from set-pieces."

And here was me thinking that Italian managers were renowned for coaching teams in the art of defence. What does he teach people on that expensive state-of-the-art training ground?

It could have been worse as Bothroyd let fly with another shot four minutes later, which was handily saved by Hilario. Aside from three off-target efforts from Lamps and Sturridge our only real threat came from an overhead kick delivered by Drogs.

Half-time: 1-1.

The second half

Solomon Kalou came on for Joe Cole. There has been a heated debate on here about Joe Cole’s performances recently but Joe gave his defenders little ammunition today. He really does seem like a ghostly shadow of the player he once became under Jose.

I was fairly sure that Carlo had been swearing in Italian during the half-time break, which is what he does when he loses his temper. We looked much more in control after half-time. Drogs was at the centre of almost every attempt on goal; Ferreira/Kalou linked well on the right with Zhirkov/Sturridge looking a little more with it on the left. Unfortunately, while Daniel looked fast, tricky and aggressive (everything Joe Cole is not) there was little end-product.

Drogs was probably our saviour today as, without his contribution, this one might have gone to a replay. He was tireless in defence and attack and constantly on at Kalou and Sturridge to deliver more. After 51 minutes we got on the counter-attack with Drogs in midfield. In a kind of role reversal he looped it forward for Ballack. I thought he was off-side but no – a perfectly-timed run from Der Kaiser - who flicked it in (I will call him ‘Ballack’ – or even ‘Ballacks’ when he plays as he did in the first-half, and ‘Der Kaiser’ when he plays like the captain of Germany).

By now, I noticed that Alex and Carvalho were getting stuck into Bothroyd (their Man of the Match) and Chopra with some tasty tackles, one of which resulted in Percy going off for treatment to a head wound. As a result, Cardiff gradually faded out of the match.

The third goal came on 69 minutes, with Drogba again instrumental. John Obi cut up still another Cardiff counter-attack and the ball broke for Sturridge. He laid it off to Didier who back-heels it back to Daniel, who sweeps it in.

I really hope that misleading nickname ‘Studge’ doesn’t stick. Calling him ‘Daniel’ is fine with me. He deserved his goal today as his attitude and work-rate was all that we have come to expect from a Chelsea player.

And that really was game over. Why we didn’t introduce Bruma at this point, with us 3-1 up against Cardiff reserves, and Percy on a yellow card and a face wound, is beyond me. Borini finally came on in the 88th minute but only after Malouda had come on for Daniel (why? Does Florence need more match experience at this level?).

There was one more highlight to come. Paolo (who played very well today, in my opinion) flighted over a slightly low cross towards the penalty spot and Kalou, with incredible agility, bent backwards and headed it over the keeper. I find Salomon frustrating at times but he is an undeniably good squad player. And he was very good on his 45 minutes today.

Player assessment

As usual, I will dispense with what Moffat calls ‘quimy’ player ratings and offer some thumbs-up-and-down-and-sideways instead.

Hilario. Thumbs up. A tiny bit uncertain sometimes but two good saves and some confident collections made up for that.

Alex. Thumb down. A better second-half display after his half-time rollocking (?) gave him an adrenalin blood-shot. But his dozy, clueless, first-half might have cost us the game.

Carvalho. Thumb sideways. Corporal Jones in the first half. But won the second half-battle with Bothroyd.

Ferreira. Thumb up. Have always liked Paulo. And he was Mr Dependable today.

Zhirkov. Thumb sideways. Doesn’t look like a left-back to me and it is interesting that we have recalled Van Aanholt, our 19-year old left-back from Newcastle, following Ashley’s injury. But looked good going forward sometimes, with Daniel in front of him.

Mikel. Thumb up. See below.

Lampard. Thumb up. Not one of his best performances and some of his shots were wasteful. But tireless in the Captain’s role today.

Ballack/Der Kaiser. Thumb sideways. You wouldn’t have known he was playing in the first half but a wonderfully timed goal decided the match in the second.

Sturridge. Thumb up. I really do like him. I suspect that his end-product would improve even more if he were given a decent run-out.

Joe Cole. Thumb down. Abysmal.

Kalou. Thumb up. Looked fast and menacing moving forward and a vast improvement on Joe Cole.

Drogba. Thumb up. See below.

Malouda/Borini. No thumb signals as both had too little time to make an impact.

Man of the Match

I really wanted to give this to John Obi Mikel, who if he carries on playing like he has in the last three games, will soon become a Chelsea legend. But Drogs – who is already a legend – wins it on a Rooneyesque one-man display.

The good

• We are in the quarter-finals yet again.
• The Drog’s Bollocks.
• Cardiff Football Club. To come here with half of their first-choice regulars missing and play with the passion they did today deserves immense respect. David Jones managed them with craft and guile and – until the 69th minute – looked like taking something from this tie. And their away support were still singing and dancing until the last minute.
• The FA. The whole match was televised from the FA website free of charge. How about Chelsea TV making the same service available (at a small charge for supporters who can’t get tickets?), replaying the match immediately after the final whistle if Sky/ESPN aren’t covering?
• John Terry. A handsome apology in the match-day programme, which took full responsibility for his errors against Everton. And thanked all of us for backing him up against the tabloid witch-hunt.

The bad

• We are in the quarter-finals again – meaning another postponed match and another midweek fixture (against Portsmouth) while our Premier League title tilt falters.
• Ray Wilkins. Still don’t get what Buster Bloodvessel does for this squad.

The conclusion

OK, it was only Cardiff. But full credit for the second-half turn around. If we can get JT, Percy and Alex back to playing like proper centre-halves we might have a chance of getting three points against Wolverhampon Wanderers next Saturday.

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• Reaction: Professionalism shines through

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Newspaper reports

BBC Sport, Sam Lyon: “Didier Drogba grabbed a brace to take his tally for the season to 25 and extend Chelsea’s league lead to four points with a clinical win over Wolves. The Ivory Coast frontman made the most of two rare chances in an unconvincing away display, sliding home his first from Yuri Zhirkov’s pin-point cross. He then latched on to Petr Cech’s long clearance for his second to wrap it up.”

The Observer, Joe Lovejoy: “Chelsea stretched their lead at the top of the Premier League to four points with a workmanlike victory over relegation-threatened Wolves, who created most of the chances but were undone by two goals from Didier Drogba, taking his total for the season to 25.”

Sunday Telegraph, Sandy Macaskill: “Two attempts on target, two goals from Didier Drogba, it was a case of minimum input for maximum reward at Molineux, and one which afforded Chelsea some breathing space at the top of the table, now four points clear of Manchester United. They could not have been anymore businesslike.”

Official Chelsea FC Website: “Chelsea moved four points clear at the top of the Barclays Premier League after a Didier Drogba brace at Molineux. A goal in either half was enough to see off a disciplined Wolves side who only rarely threatened to pull off an unlikely victory”

The goals

40′ Drogba 0-1
67′ Drogba 0-2

First half highlights

Managers’ reaction

Carlo Ancelotti: “Tough game, very difficult and what is very important is to win this game after the defeat of Manchester.

“Wolverhampton made a very good game and we didn’t play so well but we had good spirit and battled for every ball, I think we deservd to win. Now our table is better but we have to pay attention and there will be a lot of games until the end of the season and nothing is decided.”

Mick McCarthy: “I think we should have got something out of the game so I’m really annoyed.

“I’ve had a bit of a ‘chew’ at the lads because we’ve lost a game and I don’t think we should have done.

“Someone said ‘well done’ when we went in the dressing room but it wasn’t well done because we got beat.

“It’s always disappointing to get beat but we had the game by the scruff of the neck when they scored their second goal.

“They’ve gone away with a 2-0 win and people looking at it will say it was expected but anyone who was at the game will know it wasn’t the full story.

“So I’m annoyed and disappointed.”

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• Carlo Ancelotti warns Chelsea players over conduct

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Newspaper reports

The Guardian, Kevin McCarra : “There was too much history between José Mourinho and his old club for the last 16 tie to be settled in the first leg. Chelsea, often on the attack, would have merited a draw on a night where they endured disadvantages such as the loss of their goalkeeper Petr Cech to a freak knee injury. To the pleasure of all onlookers, strategy did not check the flow of entertainment. The opening supplied the momentum for the whole evening.”

Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter: “A famous figure from the past has thrown a shadow over Chelsea’s future. As San Siro screamed itself hoarse, Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan claimed a first-leg advantage over his old team, although Chelsea returned home with Salomon Kalou’s comforting away goal.”

The Times, Matt Hughes: “Inter Milan hold a slender advantage after a policy of strict counterattack was vindicated by Esteban Cambiasso’s spectacular winner, but Chelsea remain very much in the tie as a result of Salomon Kalou’s away goal. The Special One’s return to Stamford Bridge next month should live up to his self-styled nickname.”

The Independent, Mark Fleming: “Europe is still proving to be Chelsea’s Achilles’ heel. They produced some great football at times against Internazionale last night, enjoying the bulk of the possession and creating by far the greater number of attempts on goal, but they were ultimately undone by the man out of whose shadow they still struggle to emerge.”

Official Chelsea FC Website: “An away goal scored by Salomon Kalou leaves the tie on a knife edge after a night when Chelsea can feel aggrieved over another Champions League penalty decision and lost Petr Cech to injury.”

The goals

3′ Milito 1-0
51′ Kalou 1-1
55′ Cambiasso 2-1

The preamble

“Hmmm…” I hear you sigh, “…why do I keep putting myself through this shit?”

With tonight signifying ‘the return of the Special One’ as the simpletons of the press put it (it’s not the return of Jose as that’s happening in three weeks and the players and staff got all their hugs and kisses out of the way at the Rose Bowl in pre-season), I felt it would be pertinent to examine why we are still so devoted to the rollercoaster ride of pain that is supporting Chelsea Football Club.

I’m in that reminiscing sort of mood anyway. I mean, who wouldn’t be? We get to see Jose again. JOSE BLOODY MOURINHO! Did you hear me, you Jose-haters, kneeling at your Avram-shaped alters? I know you’re out there as in that nightmarish season when we just couldn’t escape his melting, Gordon Brown post-stroke look, there were many on here defending that fraud as a talented manager with potential who should just be given a chance. Well look where he is now. He’s a fucking useless clown with no managerial skill whatsoever. If you needed more proof that the Chelsea team of that season ran itself then try to find any discernible change that Avram has made on that Pompey team. Go on, keep looking you fool.

Anyway, time to return to the script.

Describing us all as masochists may be going a bit far but don’t you think it’s a bit weird that we all appear to get our jollies off by blindly supporting, defending and paying for this pain? Why don’t we just get off the ride? Why don’t we just take a step back and watch Bowls instead? We Chelsea fans actively seek out danger, controversy and a heady cocktail of pleasure and pain. We’re all mini-Jack Bauers wearing blue shirts or Presidents willing to overlook the last parachute in favour of staying on a battered plane full of Russian terrorists (Air Force One was on recently) and we wouldn’t have it any other way, would we? Just look at the events of the past week and ask yourself why even this isn’t enough to make us stop.

Top of the list is good old Ashley Cole. Now, I love Ash as he‘s just so damned brilliant as a footballer. Not only in terms of his skill but also in terms of his attitude. He fits the modern, rebellious Chelsea perfectly and our sticking up of two fingers to the rest of the football fraternity was best seen when Ashley turned his back on Mike Riley on that famous night at White Hart Lane (when Avram cost us the title by throwing away three leads). He’s a brat, a bastard and a little prick on the pitch but he’s our brat and our bastard and we’ll defend him no matter what the News of the World’s hackers find out. Having an affair, getting arrested on a night out, drink-driving, having an affair, getting caught in a secret meeting with Peter Kenyon, having an affair… they’re are all minor blips which should be overlooked and not used as sticks to beat this guy in my opinion.

In this case kicking people when they’re down just doesn’t activate my chuckle cells. For those of you who don’t read the newspapers anymore or perhaps just don’t read, I’M LOOKING AT YOU GOONERPRIDE, a little context to this week’s Ashley news may help. Ash had an affair, or five, used Chelsea’s press officer to advise one or two of these girls to shut up, got caught and is now being divorced by Queen Cheryl. So nothing new then? It’s JT-gate all over again. So why the righteous anger, £400,000 fines and potential suspension from Chelsea? What goes on in the privacy of his marriage is not anyone else’s business after all, not even his employer. Punishing people on the basis of their private lives is a tricky business because no outsider can ever be certain of the full details. Roman Abramovich and Carlo Ancelotti have both gone through separations, in the owner’s case the tally stands at two divorces, the second rather expensive. Peter Kenyon, the former chief executive, had a similar count. None of us would presume to judge them precisely because, as with Cole, we have no idea what went on.

So what is it about this case that makes it so different? If Cole’s crime is that he broke the rules at Chelsea then he is not the only one. What about the club’s swift exoneration of JT over allegations that he was paid £10,000 to show an undercover reporter around Chelsea’s training ground in the company of a well-known ticket tout? JT broke the rules so where was his fine and his suspension? It smacks of hypocrisy and the arbitrary threat from Ron Gourlay’s lecture that “past indiscretions which are subsequently exposed will not be accepted” had a whiff of a stitch-up about it. Why not tell Ashley there and then that he’s going to get battered in the next week for something which happened eight months ago? There was nothing Ashley could have done about the situation and as I said, the arbitrary and random setting of a deadline for past sex-scandals to be exposed meant Ashley was being pushed into a corner with no way out.

To an outsider this looks crazy. But for us it’s just another day in the life of being a Chelsea fan. Is it right that I’m preconditioned to defend Ashley despite him being the one who was found sneaking girls back to his hotel room? Probably not. But is it any more right that journalists and idiots alike endlessly examine the private lives of a bloke who earns obscene amounts of money for lumping a ball around a bit of turf? Look at any of the myriad of articles on Ashley and you’ll find thousands of comments underneath, usually cackling at Cashley as they put it. “HAAAAAA HAAAAAA, Cashley’s fucked,” wrote one warm-hearted and well-educated human because “Ha Ha” just wouldn’t suffice. Why leave it there, chuckles? Why not go down to Surrey, go through Ashley’s bins and find an incriminating McDonald’s bag? “HAAAAAAA HAAAAAA, Ashley eats burgers, the fat bastard! LOL!” These cretins are trying to assert an unearned, paper-thin air of superiority but in reality they’re just as bad if not worse than the celebrities they’re laughing at. The very fact that they’re willing to get so annoyed by a footballer that they’ll gleefully jettison any notion of common sense is surely a bright scarlet warning light indicating just how empty their spiritual gas tank has become. Just move on and get a life. It’s Ashley Cole for fuck’s sake not Hitler.

So there. I’ve constructed a barely believable narrative in defence of an adulterer. But that’s what a Chelsea fan has to do. And tonight there are much more important things to discuss. I’ve tried to keep the Jose references out of the piece so far and that’s because we all have our own special memories about Jose. But put it this way; I love Jose and I bet a lot of you do too. He was and still is a genius and I don’t know if we can ever move on from him.

The team

Eight injuries, Ashley injured, Zhirkov injured, Paulo not registered… we do like to do things the hard way don’t we? But Carlo doesn’t like to back down and went all out attack:

Cech, Ivanovic, Carvalho, Terry, Malouda, Ballack, Mikel, Lampard, Anelka, Drogba, Kalou.

Subs: Hilario, Joe Cole, Sturridge, Alex, Belletti, Bruma, Borini.

The match

The atmosphere was electric, the ultras were setting off flares and fireworks and the scene was set. This was it, the ‘return of Jose’. Except it didn’t really feel like that. Maybe it was the awful stench poring through every pixel of my TV as ITV’s terrible coverage and adverts spilled over the screen or perhaps it was my nerves. Big games under the leadership of Carlo have never really made me nervous as we always do well in them. Our bunch of oldies understand the pressure and skill needed to navigate these “high-level games” as Jose put it in the pre-match build up but tonight was different. Was it Jose’s tactical genius? Our awful away form? Inter’s surprisingly talented squad? Or the fact that our injury crisis was going to cost us at some point?

Jose’s third season would have brought us a third title but for the horrendous injuries we suffered and this season sort of has that same feeling about it. Eight injuries in the build up to an away leg in the knockout rounds of the Champions League never gives you the best chance of progressing but when your task is to get past a Jose-shaped brick wall then an injury crisis virtually knocks you out before you’ve even started. As well as the injuries, there was this nagging sense of divided loyalty. Would it really be so bad if Jose knocked us out? He’s a Chelsea legend after all and when you see quotes like this: “One day I will return to Chelsea. They belong to my story and I belong to their story. Chelsea is my home,” you feel like you want to fly over to Milan and smuggle Jose onto Roman’s jet so that he can return home to the Bridge, where he belongs. Or is that just me?

Anyway, on to the match. Jose had predictably taken his seat nice and early so all the cameras would be on him as the two teams walked out. We nearly missed the kick-off due to ITV’s infuriating five minute ad-break but as soon as we got under way you could tell that this was certainly a “high-level game.” Both sides were packed with experienced, world-class players and the game began with Inter and Maicon predictably targeting Malouda and Didier predictably flinging himself to the ground. Everything was going to plan then. Except our latest sleepy start was then punished in a flash. Sneijder smartly fed Milito inside our box after two minutes and his clever turn inside JT gave him the space and time to fire past Cech. It was a clinical start and we were 1-0 down before we’d even touched the ball.

I hadn’t even had enough time to look at how both sides had set-up but a quick glance showed Eto’o shadowing Ivanovic and Jose leaving Maicon to rampage down the right-wing against Malouda. But strangely Jose’s decision not to counter Carlo’s attacking selection of Malouda and Kalou on our left-wing proved to be his biggest mistake of the night. The freedom, pace and skill of Kalouda (geddit?) gave us an attacking threat which has been absent from our recent away performances and it allowed us to dominate possession and play some really lovely football. Ballack, Mikel and Lamps may not have been doing much attacking but their movement and calmness on the ball enabled us to clear our heads, get hold of the ball and use both wing-backs to get us back into the game. Ivanovic and Malouda were bloody brilliant tonight but it was Kalou who was the dominant figure in the early stages. He regularly beat Maicon at right-back (Ivanovic is still the best right-back in the world in my opinion) with his incisive running but his final ball unfortunately let him down on many occasions.

But we were playing very well after the early set back and despite a few rough challenges - see Motta’s boot to Ballack’s eye or Samuel’s off the ball kick on a prone Didier - our football was more than deserving of an equaliser. A drop of the shoulder and fierce Kalou drive was followed by a Ballack effort and then a stunning Didier free-kick amongst other efforts. Despite being 30 yards out he absolutely leathered the ball but unfortunately for us it crashed against the bar with Cesar helpless. I don’t want to exaggerate but for about 20 minutes we were battering them with Ivanovic roaring down the right and Malouda overlapping to great effect on the left. Inter’s midfield looked surprisingly tired after such a short period of time but crucially they had the first goal and Jose simply instructed them to sit back and hit us on the break.

But as I said we were dominating and I was surprised that we only had 58% of possession. We were still creating chances but frustratingly our finishing did not match our brilliant build up play. Ivanovic’s long throw found Didier in the box but his smart chest, turn and volley narrowly flashed wide. Lampard then found Mikel and his chipped ball forward again gave Didier the chance to chest and volley in on Cesar’s goal but unfortunately it flew wide. Mikel and Frank also had nice long range efforts but we just couldn’t get the goal we deserved.

The only people who failed to notice our dominance and surprisingly attractive football were ITV’s horrendous commentators. Tyldesley was at his usual patronising worst, almost willing Inter to score, as seen when Eto’o completely missed his kick inside the box from Inter’s only other attack of the half. Yes it was a good chance but to say that “Chelsea have to calm down and get their heads together or they’re out of this game,” was ridiculous. Hmmm I thought to myself. From where I was sitting and I was desperately trying to avoid wearing my blue-tinted specs here, we were dominating the match and only some poor finishing had let us down. Yes Inter had scored a great goal and had a great chance to double their lead but apart from those two breakaways, this half had belonged to us.

But as the half drew to a close the game exploded into action after a little lull in proceedings (apart from an abysmal Milito dive). Ivanovic won our first corner of the game with one of his trademark drives down the right-wing and from Lamps’ corner it looked like the Serb was bundled over by a clear barge in the back from Samuel. PENALTY! I screamed (to myself) but did any of you expect the referee to give us a decision as important as that in the San Siro? The only way Chelsea would get a penalty in the San Siro is if an Inter defender blatantly tripped and then barged into the back of a Chelsea striker bearing down on goal. So, right on cue Kalou ran on to an immense Ivanovic long throw, entered the box and was about to convert from six yards for that crucial away goal when Samuel tripped him and then ran into his legs. Was it a penalty? Fuck me. If you couldn’t see that was a penalty then you need shooting, in the knee-caps preferably. How Mejuta blah blah, Spanish wanker, couldn’t see it, I don’t know. It was an abysmal decision and the fact that Samuel lay there, with his head in his hands after tripping Kalou said it all. He knew it was a penalty. Kalou knew it was. Ballack knew it. JT knew it. Even Tyldesley knew it. The ref immediately blew up for half-time and we surrounded him in a repeat of the Barcelona scenes of last season. No matter what happened in the second half, the lack of a penalty award and red card would undoubtedly cost us.

The second half started in much the same way as the first ended: Chelsea dominating the ball and Inter sitting back, waiting for an opportunity to spring forward. I was still pissed off that our impressive play hadn’t garnered a goal but I needn’t have worried. After all we had the irrepressible Ivanovic on our side. His rampaging run beat four Inter defenders and his perfect set for Kalou allowed the Ivorian to pass the ball into the back of the net from 25 yards. I couldn’t care less that it was a goalkeeping error as Ivanovic, Kalou and ultimately the whole team deserved that equaliser. All we needed to do now was close the half out and start planning for the next round.

But then, disaster. I don’t know how he does it but Jose always seems to create teams that play at their best when an opponent has the temerity to score against them. Eto’o and Sneijder immediately went up the other end for the first time in 40 minutes and the Dutch maestro’s cross fell to Cambiasso to volley in at the second attempt. It was a great finish but it only came about from a lucky rebound off Ivanovic and some sloppy tracking back from Kalou and Mikel. Suddenly we were behind and Jose decided to spring into action. He tried to kill off the tie with the introduction of the arrogant but supremely talented Balotelli and then the tricky Pandev. He knew that a third goal would all but send us out and with Malouda at left-back; pace was the way to beat this Chelsea side.

For the next few minutes we appeared shell-shocked, as if unable to comprehend how all our good play had only got us a 2-1 deficit. And then things got even worse. An innocuous Inter punt forward was easily caught by Cech but as he bowled the ball out his knee appeared to give way and the stretcher was immediately called for. Fears of a Joe Cole-style cruciate injury were quickly downplayed by Carlo after the match but having the treble in the hands of hapless-Hilario fills me with dread.

The rest of the half kind of petered out with Lucio dominating Didier and our midfield beginning to tire. A lovely bit of one-touch football and a mistimed Lampard volley apart, not much else happened. Jose closed the game out with some subtle tactical changes and Carlo appeared to settle for the single away goal. And that was about that. A 2-1 defeat but an away goal. Would you have taken that at the start of the night?

The good

• Our football – We’ve been embarrassingly awful in our recent away games but tonight was different. Maybe our stroll at Wolves allowed us to play at this intensity but I thought we were brilliant tonight (for 87 minutes that is). We had pace, trickery, overlapping full-backs, an awesome Didier for 45 minutes and a calm and assured midfield and as I mentioned earlier, I truly believe that our football deserved more than one away goal. With a second goal, this would have almost been a complete performance but in the end it ended advantage Inter.
• Malouda and Kalou – He’s not a left-back right? I only ask because his performance tonight was exemplary. He didn’t put a foot wrong all night and with both Cole and Zhirkov out, our left-back crisis was hardly noticeable all night. It was a truly inspired selection from Carlo. And as for Kalou, well, he was great. A few blind-alley runs were still on show but his direct running at Maicon and pace were a crucial outlet for us. How he didn’t get a penalty, I don’t know but his goal was fully deserved.
• Jose – It’s just great to see him. And you can still see his little touches of genius as he put Lucio on Didier in the second half after our number 11 had dominated Samuel earlier, or his attacking substitutions to kill the game after going 2-1 up. He’s pure box-office gold for some, an arrogant bastard for others but a footballing genius for me.
• Ivanovic – I don’t know what else to say about our super-Serb. He’s fucking brilliant and the best right-back in the world. So there.
• Lucio – A cynical, cheating, diving twat at times but simply world class at others. Who said Brazilians can’t defend?

The bad

• Finishing – 18 attempts at goal, 57% of possession but only one away goal. I know I’m asking a lot but if we had squeezed in a second we were as good as through.
• Referee – Had a very good game for me. Let play go, didn’t fall for their diving, wasn’t intimidated by the home crowd but… he’s a useless, fucking, blind idiot who couldn’t spot the clearest penalty I’ve seen for bloody ages. My gut feeling is that that decision has cost us this tie. Jose will find a way to score at the Bridge and as he said tonight “I never lose at Stamford Bridge.” It wasn’t just the fact that we would have been at 1-1 at half-time but that the penalty and red card would have prevented Jose making so many attacking substitutions and as a result we would have controlled the game for the second period.
• Injuries – So that’s nine and counting. There’s only so much more our depleted and old legs can take. Florent may have put in a perfect left-back display but just look at our midfield – one more injury and we’re screwed. Lamps has been rushed back from illness and looked absolutely shattered tonight but who else do we have so that we can rest him? One more injury and our season is over basically. It really is that dire.
• Hilario – He’s shit. There. I said it. “Oh, but he never lets us down.” So? A shit keeper can still be a lucky keeper and apart from being an alright shot-stopper, his decision making, command of his box and kicking are truly abysmal. Just look at his three kicks tonight: all three barely made it to the half-way line and if Milito or Eto’o had been in the right position it would have been 3 or 4-1. I mean, what keeper can’t KICK A FUCKING FOOTBALL! He doesn’t even look like an outfield player masquerading as a keeper but instead a buffoon who has stolen some goalkeeper’s gloves. I don’t care what you lot say in the comments, HE WILL COST US THE TITLE IF CECH’S OUT FOR THE SEASON.

Player ratings

• Cech – 7/10 – Calm, assured and assertive but a serious injury ended his night and quite possibly our season. Here’s hoping it’s only a calf strain.
• Ivanovic – 9.5/10 – Stunning. Unstoppable when going forward and unbeatable at the back. His assist for the goal certainly shut Gareth Southgate up and his quick thinking on half-time should have won us a penalty.
• Ricky – 7/10 – Some crucial interceptions and nice distribution allowed us to dominate possession. However, a tricky and quick forward like Eto’o can expose his old legs.
• Terry – 5/10 – Lovely clearances, distribution and tackling but his dismal defending against Milito cost us a goal and his losing of Eto’o in the box 20 minutes later should have cost us another. He’s still brilliant at times but at the moment his errors are proving costly.
• Malouda – 9.5/10 – A perfect left-back display. Simple as that.
• Mikel – 7/10 – Calm on the ball but his slack concentration is infuriating and he really should have spotted the danger for Inter’s second goal much earlier than he did.
• Ballack – 7/10 – Again, calm and classy on the ball. His experience and quality certainly outshone the useless Stankovic and Motta and if he can get us a goal in the second leg, he’ll be back to his best.
• Lampard – 6/10 – Looked exhausted and is probably still ill. But his vision and quality are irreplaceable.
• Kalou – 8/10 – A revelation for me. Direct, quick running exposed Maicon’s poor defensive skills and a well taken goal was the least his impressive performance deserved. His quick thinking to link up with Ivanovic’s throw should have got us back into the game.
• Anelka – 5/10 – Useless. Neat and tidy on the ball at times but plain slow and lazy and other points in the game. With Zhirkov back for the second leg, Didier should be flanked by both Malouda and Kalou. At the moment he’s only getting in the team because of his early season form.
• Didier – 7.5/10 – A brilliant first-half with numerous shots, volleys and crosses but crucially no goal and Jose’s subtle change at half-time allowed Lucio to silence him in the second-half.
• Hilario (sub) – 4/10 – Awful.
• Sturridge (sub) – 6/10 – Not enough time to affect the game.
• Ancelotti – 8/10 – His tactics were perfect tonight and his team selection was also inspired. With a little more luck (Cambiasso rebound) and a few more options in the second leg, I’m confident he’ll guide us through. If not, then he’s out, right? I’d hate to see it but if he doesn’t win anything this year then what do you think will happen to him?

Man of the Match

Ivanovic was again awesome but I’ve given him enough MOTM’s so tonight I’ll give it to Malouda. His left-back display was simply perfect.

The conclusion

So we lost and seeing as Jose never loses at the Bridge, we’re basically out. Right? Well, not exactly.

We completely outplayed them tonight and if we can stamp out the sloppy starts and improve our finishing then we’ve got a great chance of going through. I accept that Eto’o and Milito looked dangerous whenever they got the ball but Carlo knew that the key to getting a good result was blocking the supply to these strikers and judging by the minimal effect Sneijder had on this game, he appeared to get that right too.

We did so much right today that I feel really pissed off that we didn’t get what we deserve. It’s not that I’m a bad loser and I know that football isn’t fair but it’s just that Carlo outsmarted Jose and Chelsea outplayed Inter tonight. But in the end we escaped with an away goal and we’ll need a win in the second leg to go through. Many have spotted the similarities with the Barcelona tie in Jose’s first season but this tie is a little different for me. Jose knows how to play us and it would be extraordinary if we scored three goals in the first 20 minutes and scraped through with a late JT header. I know it’s possible for us to go through and I really hope that we do but I have a sinking feeling that our defence, specifically Hilario, will concede and we just won’t have enough to go through. In the end the injuries have caught up with us and unless Essien and Cech make some miraculous recoveries, I’m sorry to say it, but we’re going out.

Nighty night.

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Newspaper reports

The Guardian, Kevin McCarra: "Carlo Ancelotti’s team were as devastating as they needed to be, with Didier Drogba preying on these opponents as usual. The Ivorian was close to a hat-trick with a free-kick that cracked against the crossbar but his impact had already been sufficient. If anything, John Terry might have been slightly frustrated by the anodyne attacks. The centre-half would have relished more opportunities in which to prove that he is undiminished by disappointment after being stripped of the England captaincy."

Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter: "Such an educated Frenchman as Arsène Wenger must know the meaning of déjà vu. Once again, Arsenal failed to live with the physical demands of the game. Once again, they were caught out on the counter. Once again, they lacked a central attacking force. Unlike Chelsea. Once again, Didier Drogba destroyed Wenger’s side."

The Times, Oliver Kay: "This felt like watching an old movie for the umpteenth time. It was a bit of a mish-mash, unsure at times whether it wanted to be art house or blockbuster, but, to the surprise of nobody except Arsène Wenger, it ended up as an action film, starring the irrepressible Didier Drogba."

The Independent, Glenn Moore: "This defeat ends Arsenal’s championship challenge. They were top on 20 January, but one point from successive matches against Aston Villa, Manchester United and Chelsea have left them nine points behind the latter who are back at the summit. Although Arsène Wenger insisted his team would not give up, Wednesday’s visit of Liverpool is now about the minor placings."

Official Chelsea FC Website: "Didier Drogba took his goal tally against Arsenal to 12 in 12 games today as we dominated the Gunners at Stamford Bridge."

The goals

8′ Drogba 1-0
23′ Drogba 2-0

That was the week that was…

Football without Chelsea would, as the last week has demonstrated, be a pretty dull affair. If we didn’t exist, you’d probably have to invent us.

Given the recent headlines, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Blues were captained by the bastard offspring of Warren Beatty and Oliver Reed. JT has had a bit of a week of it at the hands of the media, whose view of what should happen amongst the upstanding football folk of leafy Surrey is evidently far more ‘Terry and June’ than ‘Terry in June’ (and April, and Summer, and Vanessa…)

Exaggeration by the hacks has played a part, of course – having read some of the stories, it brings to mind Ian Botham’s suggestion that had he been involved in half of the off-field shenanigans recounted in the press, he’d have struggled to find the time, or indeed the energy to play any cricket.

The Perroncel-Terry-Bridge saga gathered pace rapidly last weekend after the not-so-super injunction was lifted by Justice Cocklecarrot; one small step for freedom of the press, one giant leap for overblown self-righteousness. And by the time we were scrapping our way to a point up at Hull, what started as a slightly seedy love triangle had morphed into a fully-blown shag dodecahedron. Miss Perroncel, it seemed, had a bit of a thing for a Chelsea player. Or five.

It’s difficult to think of anything or anyone that has worked through a football team so successfully since Champions League chasing Spurs copped for a dodgy lasagne a few seasons back. One wonders whether a former fitness coach at Cobham had actually prescribed an occasional go on young Vanessa as part of the players’ training regime.

Meanwhile, Wayne Bridge’s relatively dignified silence was scuppered by the well-meaning but ultimately rather brainless “Team Bridge” T-shirt effort from a few of his team-mates; it all looked a bit tragic – somewhere between a ‘Loose Women’ diatribe and a bad episode of ‘Sex and the City’. Lots of “leave it Wayne, he’s / she’s not worth it…” and the like.

Mercifully, Don Fabio jetted in to put an end to the sorry saga on Friday, summoning JT to Wembley for a ‘showdown’ which turned out to be even shorter than some of VP’s relationships.

Relieving Terry of the England captaincy was largely symbolic (I keep thinking of Mr. Banks having his bowler hat, carnation and umbrella trashed by his superiors at the bank in ‘Mary Poppins’), but will hopefully keep our captain away from the front pages in the longer term and allow him to sort his rather complex off-pitch life out.

So has it been a lesson learned? JT’s chequered past and the revelations that he has spent a mind-boggling £750,000 silencing various former conquests suggests not, but Capello’s swift action (whether his own or otherwise) and advice that he should seek help may finally ring true in this instance.

The debate over the boundaries of private and public life will continue; JT’s role in the uneasy relationship between press freedom and the public’s ‘right to know’ looks to have become something of a legal milestone – whether large sections of the Fourth Estate will use it for anything more than the titillation of the masses with tales of what the rich and famous get up to between the sheets or in the back seats of their Bentleys remains to be seen.

Was there anything else? Oh yes, transfer ban lifted– the lawyers have been busy this week. One of the more interesting contract disputes of recent years (hey, I like that sort of thing, OK?) has been resolved with Chelsea and Gael Kakuta being cleared of all charges brought against them.

No grand conspiracy here, as far as I can see; a dispute over the mechanics and legality of a contract rather inflamed by a spot of corporate cock waving on the part some of the individuals involved. The departure of a controversial chief exec and Roman’s conversion of the remaining debt into equity in the weeks after the ban was lifted on appeal might suggest that we are maybe just a little keener to embrace our role as one of Europe’s elite clubs.

It says here that we’re playing Arsenal too. There really is no rest for the wicked.

The game

How fortuitous for the black / white / no grey area guardians of football that today’s visitors to the den of vice and iniquity that is Stamford Bridge were football’s new puritans. A group of young men, bastions of all that is good and right in the beautiful game whose fresh-faced outlook – oh, you get the picture. Let’s be honest, the closest they are likely to get to any sort of sexual scandal is for Arsene to find a copy of ‘Razzle’ and some crusty Kleenex in Theo Walcott’s kit bag.

According to young Fabregas, the only thing likely to be fucked in SW6 today was Arsenal’s title challenge should they fail to leave with anything less than three points. As January’s festival of goals and crushing victories for the Blues gave way to slightly shaky performances up at Burnley and Hull; this could well be a pivotal moment in the season for both sides.

I always approach games against Arsenal with a degree of caution – probably has something to do with some truly shocking results and slices of utterly crap fortune handed down to us over the years (Kanu, Silvinho, Winterburn, it’s only Ray Parlour etc.), but today the realisation dawned – the crux of it is, they really aren’t a team for us to fear any more.

Possession statistics will be quoted by their manager and fans alike, but rarely has any team looked more comfortable without the ball than Chelsea did today. Arsenal were almost stereotypical in their inability to make any kind of showing against genuine title challengers – they’d have hammered Blackburn or Sunderland with that kind of performance, but the air down in SW6 is very different.

Within ten minutes of Mike Dean’s first whistle, the old favourites were rolled out. A set piece plus the presence of Drogba – the more things change, the more they stay the same. Some majestic footwork and a sublime finish from the mighty DD before the half hour and the game was effectively over as a contest. Arsenal responded, fitfully in the first half and more consistently after the break, but two shots on target (both well handled by Cech) and lots of attractive but ultimately meaningless passes – some two hundred more than the Blues – is simply not the stuff of title winners.

Well, if it is, Carlo and Fergie really are doing something wrong.

At times, the actions and demeanour of Wenger and his side spoke volumes. The manager’s trademark arms outstretched stance seemed to ape the frustrated fisherman, demonstrating the sheer size of the one that got away; Fabregas’s odd gesticulations to the card-waving Dean after a fruitless tussle with Drogba late in the game looked like those of a frustrated schoolboy impotently shouting “B-b-b-but – he’s bigger than me!”

Ah, Drogba. Surely the only options left for the Arsenal manager now when faced with a fixture against Chelsea are to pray for his retirement or to put in an offer for our magnificent Ivorian. Either that, or buy some better centre halves. Good to have you back, Didier.

Player ratings

This very fine bottle of Pinot noir leaves me little option but to score today’s performances on the Robert Parker ‘Parker Points ®’ wine rating scale. 90-95 is basically outstanding, 96-100 exceptional. Argue over tasting notes, additional points for nose and complexity of character as you see fit, but don’t expect an answer from me as I find all this ratings lark a load of old guff if I’m honest.

• Cech 98
• Ivanovic 97
• Carvalho 96
• Terry 96
• Cole (A) 97
• Mikel 97
• Ballack 94
• Lampard 95
• Malouda 95
• Anelka 97
• Drogba 99

Zhirkov, Kalou and Cole (J) receive a relatively neutral 93 and need to be laid down for greater enjoyment at a later date.

Man of the Match

Some fine performances all round, but Drogba gets the Ferrero Rocher this weekend.

Wrapping it all up in a few sentences

Given his record against the ‘Big Two’ (let’s not pretend it’s ‘Four’ any more, shall we?) in the post Vieira / Pires / Henry et al era, one wonders how much longer the powers that be up at the Emirates will keep telling themselves that Arsene knows. A purist he may be – admirably so, to a point – but the further down that road he travels, the further away he gets from the harsh realities of Premiership life. Realities like Drogba and Rooney, for example.

As for us, the week ended far better than we can have reasonably expected it to a few days ago. Gooners brushed aside with fairly consummate ease, top of the league and a largely enjoyable ninety minutes without sight of any French lingerie models (no bad thing in the current climate), Max Clifford or Carlos Tevez’s fed-with-a-catapult-as-a-child-face in a stupid slogan T-shirt.

Thirteen games to go, two points clear. It is about to get interesting…

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Newspaper reports

The Guardian, Andy Hunter: "There was no hostile reception for John Terry at Goodison Park but he was to suffer regardless. The Chelsea and former England captain was at fault for both Everton goals as David Moyes celebrated his first ever victory over the London club and Carlo Ancelotti saw his side falter at the Premier League summit. And they could have few complaints."

Daily Telegraph, Mark Ogden: "For all the embarrassing headlines and revelations he has had to endure over the past fortnight, not even his twelve minute audience with Fabio Capello last Friday will have proved as uncomfortable for John Terry as his 90-minute mauling at the hands of Louis Saha."

The Times, James Ducker: "There is a danger that Terry’s blunders will overshadow the bigger picture, which is the Barclays Premier League title race, but on that front Chelsea should probably just be thankful that Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw away to Aston Villa."

The Independent, Ian Herbert: "Chelsea do not care much for North-west England – three of their season’s four League defeats have occurred here – and the same malaise which affected them at Wigan and Manchester City allowed Saha to take his season’s tally for Everton to 15 goals."

Official Chelsea FC Website: "Chelsea’s form on the road continues to keep it tight at the top of the table after a committed Everton performance took all three points despite Chelsea taking a first-half lead."

The goals

17′ Malouda 0-1
33′ Saha 1-1
75′ Saha 2-1

The preamble

“No man is happy without a delusion of some kind.
Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities”
(Christian Nevell Bovee)… whoever he was.

Do you know what’s funny?

Yeah you, over there, reading this on your iPhone. Is this even available on the iPhone? Bet it is, although the merits of staring at a tiny screen to read your news still baffles me. There’s probably even a little downloadable application that lets you scroll down the report by tilting it towards you. After all, there’s an "app" for everything isn’t there? There’s one that turns the iPhone into a motion-sensitive light sabre for fuck sake: it makes wooshy Star Wars noises as you swipe it around. Really passes the time during the unrelenting march to death, that.

However, thus far I have been unmoved by friends of mine screaming for me to join the Steve Jobs cult. It’s not just his patronising, creepy-tennis-coach look. No, it’s his and Apple’s endless ripping off of their customers. They may have turned the cultish, over-hyping of every new release of a slightly updated bit of kit into an art-form but there’s making money and then there’s exploiting a bunch of brainwashed followers. Now, at this point I’d like to point out to our dear leader Nick that I’m not trying to expose his folly at having joined this march towards universal iPhonism, but sometimes it’s just nice to go against the tide, which brings me on nicely towards the subject of today’s class: delusion.

Swimming against the tide, not following the herd or simply turning your back on the group, is that the sign of an independent, single-minded rebel or a stubborn old git? I pose this question in the aftermath of our crushing, or should I say controlled win against Arsenal on Sunday. Monsieur Wenger has been called a number of things in the past few days; stubborn, unreasonable, tight, a bloody moron (ok, that’s just me) but why not deluded? His tirades, perhaps tirades taken out of context, about Arsenal dominating the game and having all the possession and constantly pressing for a goal and blah blah blah were all true in some ways, but after again losing easily to us, they just sound like the ramblings of a mad man.

Wenger appears to be a member of the minority of people in England who believe that Arsenal’s way of playing football is not only the right way but the only way. Or putting it more accurately, the most deserving way. Playing total football on the floor deserves to win trophies in his mind but unless you have the likes of Xavi, Messi and crucially, a star striker to act as a focus for this football, this drive for footballing artistry to rule the world is ultimately a futile one.

But if he knows that he is in a minority of one or perhaps two if Pat Rice chirps up, why doesn’t he shut up? It’s really quite simple. Loudly and repeatedly complaining about those bully boys from West London using ‘professional tricks’ to engineer a win ultimately achieves nothing and for the rest of us acts as an annoying pain in the arse. Usually I like to champion the ideals of those with radical and new opinions but this time enough’s enough: it’s time Arsene was carted off to the mad house. His time has gone and I believe that Arsenal deserve more than pretty football. They’ve fallen such a long way from the Invincibles in such a short period of time that I just feel sorry for them. It’s sort of funny how football works like that.

But enough of that, it’s Chelsea we’re supposed to be concentrating on and at the moment we’re top of the league. Yeah, we’re only stumbling towards the title with a six point gap now down to two after an inevitable but stupid wobble in December but it’s the Chelsea to say “Who the fuck cares?” We’re top of the bloody league and if we can keep our big players fit and continue to grind out wins the title should be ours.

The team

Just one change from our comfortable weekend win as the legs and pace of Zhirkov came in for the tired and wasteful Ballack.

The game

An away game against David Moyes’ bunch of “long-ball thugs” as I harshly described them on the weekend never gives off the warmest of glows in the stomach but tonight’s game had the whiff of an ugly and costly night. Now for those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of sitting through all 90 minutes or Match of the Day’s highlights, then I won’t spoil it for you, but put it this way; we’re not so much stumbling towards the title as having our dead corpse thrown over the line before United’s gang of pensioners, Mr. Averages and geniuses (Rooney) creep over before us.

So kick-off arrived with Utd drawing level at Villa Park through yet another own-goal (is that 10 for the season?) and then Nani getting a red card to brighten the mood. So the side already a nice little boost to get them going.

And it sort of looked that way. I say sort of because Moyes’ specialty is getting his average side to run around at 100 miles an hour and launch long-balls to Saha hoping for a moment of brilliance or a set-piece (a little hint of things to come). Now, that may be a harsh description but I’ve never really rated Moyes. Those who put the Scot at the head of the list to succeed Fergie are out of their bloody minds. Jose may be stereotyped as a man who coaches effective yet boring football but Moyes just coaches ugly football. He’s an ugly manager with an ugly side and I don’t care who disagrees with me.

As you can probably tell I’m a little pissed off after tonight’s result so it’s time to calm down and relax before starting again… you lot should probably have a play on your iPhones…

Ahhhh… look at the lovely way the screen steams up… Ooh… I can rub it away too…

…Ok I’m back. So the game begins as predicted: Everton running around like a chicken who has had one of its feet chopped off and us sitting back waiting for these strange Northerners to calm down and let us play. Not much happened which could be described as proper football as both sides struggled to keep the ball and Everton continued their relentless bombing of our box with long-balls. But then we decided to wake up as a trademark punt from Cech was knocked on by Didier for Malouda to fire home. And that was 1-0. If we could have ended it there then the title was nearly won. We were four points clear now.

We were now into our stride as we began to keep the ball well and appeared to have Everton under control. But something didn’t really feel right. I don’t know if it was the lack of rest which our ancient legs need to perform (see how well we play when Carlo and the boys have a week to prepare and rest) or whether it was the inevitable lack of tactical work the squad would have done after an exhausting game against Arsenal but our possession was rather meaningless. It was beautiful on the eye at times but it never really threatened and we never looked like getting a second. Carlo has said on many occasions how the side doesn’t like to change “their philosophy” when we play away from home but perhaps it’s time we did. We look lost at times on the road, as if we don’t know whether to embrace the Jose instincts of hanging onto a valuable 1-0 lead or getting the second to kill off the game.

And then our pointless Arsenal-esque possession football (or simple time wasting if put another way) was punished. Now guess where from. Beautiful flowing football? Err no. A brilliant piece of individual skill? Still wrong. A refereeing mistake? Very much no. Ok, I’ll give it to you: a bloody set-piece. Yep, a fucking corner. A ball swung in from the right was headed home with ridiculous ease as Saha escaped the attentions of Mr. Terry. Our captain fantastic was again great in open play tonight but this one mistake at a corner virtually cost us the game. We had Everton under control and if it wasn’t for this gift of a goal their aimless running around would have petered out. The lead was back down to two points.

For the rest of the half we began to lose control and some of our players began to hide. Now, I know have been harsh on Anelka ever since Didier returned but tonight he was fucking useless. It’s not his fault that he’s not very good on the right wing but to not even try or put in as much effort as Florent bloody Malouda is embarrassing. We could have restored our lead as Malouda found Didier with a beautiful through ball and our battering ram showed unexpected finesse by cutting it back for Ashley to easily convert from six yards but instead an off-balance Anelka decided to interrupt proceedings with a pathetic prod wide. It was that kind of night for our number 39 but more on him later.

Actually, more on him now. Everton were doing all the pressing but when we did have the ball we did have a couple of potential chances. We were able to break away in numbers but predictably Nico messed things up. With Lamps, Ash and Didier all free he dribbled down a cul-de-sac and lost the ball to Neville and then turned away and shrugged. And that laziness was almost immediately punished. Everton went up the other end and found acres of space with Ash out of position. Arteta sent Donovan running down the inside-right channel but the ball appeared to be too far ahead of him and Ricky was tempted into performing one of his trademark sprinting interceptions. Except his challenge was completely mistimed and Donovan had the simplest of tasks in knocking the ball past him and running into Ricky’s leg for an obvious penalty. Shockingly, the world’s most useless penalty saver kept out Saha’s strike and the half ended 1-1.

So after a worryingly sloppy and tired first half we came roaring out for the second period. We were all over them and dominating the game with free-flowing, slick football. It was only a matter of time before we scored. Except, none of that happened. If anything we were even more useless. Whereas in the first-half we looked controlled yet a little lost with the ball, now we looked completely clueless. In fact we didn’t actually touch the ball for 20 minutes. Everton were battering us with plenty of long-balls, crosses and general pressure and we were struggling. The back five or six including the impressive Mikel were standing up to most of what Everton could throw at us and one could argue that they didn’t create anything in the way of a chance, but still, this endless pressure would surely only have one outcome.

But that would come later, for now back to Anelka. Fifty-four minutes were on the clock. Chelsea finally had control of the ball and Anelka was in a dangerous position on the left wing. Instead of crossing to Didier or Lamps he dropped the shoulder three times, ran around in circles and then crossed the ball into Distin’s legs. Instead of concentrating on Everton’s breakaway he simply shrugged his shoulders, threw his arms out and sulked off to the corner flag. It was fucking pathetic play.

We were still on the rack as Everton continued to come forward but our defence, the superb Ivanovic in particular, was keeping them out. Unfortunately Ash had to hobble off with a worrying looking foot injury (if broken our Champions League hopes are in tatters as this side without Ash and Essien look slow and predictable) and as soon as that happened we had no out ball whatsoever. The pressure was incessant but after Anelka’s dismal night was ended with the arrival of Kalou, a more orthodox 4-3-3 started to produce results. We had width and pace but our midfield was still strangely anonymous. In the end we cracked. A long ball to Saha evaded Terry’s head and the Frenchman volleyed the ball into the far corner for a deserved 2-1 lead. Except on closer viewing the ball flew straight between Cech’s hands. Oh well, one flawless game for Big Pete and then one glaring error. That’s how it is with him at the moment.

We had 14 minutes to get back into the game and Carlo responded with the substitution of Mikel for Sturridge. His pace and trickery almost brought immediate results and I really hope that Carlo gives this boy a chance soon. A perfect Cruyff-turn led to a corner which Didier crashed against the ball from 12 yards out. We were close but not close enough. However, that near-miss stung us into action and suddenly we were back to our title-chasing best. Kalou, Sturridge, Lamps and again Ivanovic were driving us forward but ultimately it was too-little too-late. Our pressure yielded no results and a narrow 2-1 defeat was the most we deserved. In the end, Everton and Saha out-battled us and out-fought us on a crucial night in the title race.

The good

• Ivanovic – Absolutely fucking brilliant. Rumours of a bid for Alves worry me, after all, a right-back who can’t defend have cost us in the past. Isn’t that right, Glen? But if it gives him the chance to partner JT then we’re the better for it. John looked jaded tonight and if it wasn’t for Ivanovic we would have lost by three or four.
• Mikel, Sturridge and Kalou – Our three ‘youngsters’ were the only ones who looked to have the drive and legs to get us back into the game. We all knew this season would come but this squad’s time is nearly up. We’re too bloody old to keep going. As I said earlier, a week’s worth of training, tactical preparation and most importantly rest will always get us a win but when the games come every three days we can look tired and, well, just too damned old to keep doing this. This summer will see a huge overhaul of this squad and anyone who says we don’t need it can fuck off.
• Villa’s result – Hanging on for a draw, against 10 men, whilst playing at home is pathetic but tonight could and should have been so much worse for us.
• Saha – What is he doing at Everton? Him in this year’s Arsenal side could have been great.

The bad

• Set-pieces – 16/23 conceded is just embarrassing.
• John Terry – Brilliant in open play for most of the game but one error at a corner and one missed header from another Everton long ball cost us. But as this Chelsea side is so arrogant and complacent, perhaps our bunch of lazy superstars needed this result to concentrate the mind.
• Everton’s football – They won the game and deservedly so but David Moyes should have learnt to coach in a more attractive style than this if he wants the top jobs in the game. He’s the new Big Sam in my eyes.
• Away form – Last season we were useless at home and amazing away. This year it’s the exact reverse. As I said earlier, the team looks lost and scared when we go 1-0 up away from home. Carlo needs to focus the side and tell them whether we should hold on and battle for a 1-0 or go for the killer second goal. Until they know what to do we will continue to drop points on our travels. It’s a good thing that we’ve still got to go to Anfield, Old Trafford and White Hart Lane then.

Player ratings

• Cech – 8/10 – Three bonus points for a penalty save but one knocked off for a crap attempt to palm away Saha’s volley.
• Ivanovic – 9.5/10 – Superb. I love the Serb and in time he’ll become a Chelsea legend. He may not attack like Alves but would any of us drop him for that Brazilian fairy?
• Carvalho – 6/10 – Looked nervous and like many others tired. I’m willing to put a large amount on this being his last season.
• Terry – 6/10 – He’s been bloody brilliant since the headlines but tonight looked like one game too many for his tired mind. His rest will come in handy.
• A. Cole – 7/10 – Before the injury, his pace, drive and attitude were keeping us in the game. After he went off, the defeat was inevitable. He really is that crucial for us now and if he doesn’t make it to Milan, our season could be over.
• Mikel – 7.5/10 – I was impressed by him tonight. Calm, composed and classy.
• Lampard – 6.5/10 – Never got in the game but his quality on the ball was evident whenever we gave it to him. But the fact that he only touched it about 10 times tells you how badly we played tonight.
• Zhirkov – 6/10 – Impressive start but faded as Everton cranked up the aggression. He’s still not a left-back in my book.
• Anelka – 5/10 – Terrible. His great early season form is slipping away as he fades away on the right wing. We’ll win at Wolves but when we travel to Milan Carlo must decide whether Anelka plays in a diamond or Joe starts in a 4-3-3. If Anelka starts on the right, then Jose will find a way to exploit that flaw.
• Malouda – 6.5/10 – Did more than Nico but that isn’t saying much. A little too weak for these away-days perhaps?
• Drogba – 6/10 – Never got the service and until he headed against the bar you would have struggled to realise he was on the pitch.
• Ballack (sub) – 6/10 – Did absolutely nothing.
• Kalou (sub) – 7/10 – A bit high? I just liked the pace and energy he brought to the side after Anelka was hauled off.
• Sturridge (sub) – 7/10 – Again, too high? I don’t care. His pace and tricks livened up our performance and he deserves a chance in an important game. That doesn’t mean Wolves away.

Man of the Match

There’s only one. Ivanovic is a rock for us and I can’t imagine our side without him at present.

The conclusion

So how about that? Who wouldn’t have bet that we would cruise past Arsenal and then crumble against Everton? We’re just that predictable. Predictably inconsistent that is. Listening to Utd desperately go for the winner at Villa Park despite only having 10 men, I could only look at our slow and clueless throwing away of a 1-0 lead and feel sadness. Sadness that we will probably throw this title away. Sadness that this team is coming to an end. And sadness that since Jose left we always choke when we’ve got the chance to pull away. This side knew how to lead from the front but at the moment it looks like we have no idea how we want to play. Our shit December led to a stunning January and now a stupid February as our chance to scamper away at the top has given way to nervous stumbling against the likes of Burnley, Hull and Everton. I believe that we’ll beat Utd and Liverpool but as Rafa showed last season, winning the Big Four mini-league means nothing. Winning the title needs consistency and belief and at the moment it doesn’t look like we believe we will win the title.

So a disappointing night. But that’s Chelsea for you.

Is it possible to win the league by only winning at home?

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• Reaction: They made it extremely difficult

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The Court of Arbitration for Sport has lifted Chelsea’s transfer ban after the club reached an agreement with Lens over the signing of Gaël Kakuta.

A statement on the CAS website said:

"The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has issued an award today ratifying the agreement reached by Chelsea FC, Racing Club de Lens and the French football player Gaël Kakuta, putting an end to this arbitration procedure which also involved FIFA. The CAS has noted that, in the agreement, the two clubs and the player have recognised that the contract between the player and RC Lens was not valid. Accordingly, the player could not have terminated it prematurely and without just cause and Chelsea FC cannot therefore be liable for inducing a breach of contract. As a consequence, in light of these new circumstances, the sanctions imposed upon Chelsea FC and the player by the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber had to be lifted."

All parties agreed the proceedings would remain confidential.

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Newspaper reports

The Guardian, Kevin McCarra: "All Chelsea could take from this draw was a reminder that the return of the Premier League title will only be achieved with difficulty. Against opponents from the relegation zone, they needed a Didier Drogba equaliser merely to increase their lead over Manchester United to two points at the head of the table."

Daily Telegraph, Henry Winter: "Hull were well worth their point, exploiting more unease in Chelsea’s defence at a set-piece with Steven Mouyokolo’s header from Stephen Hunt’s corner. Chelsea equalised through Didier Drogba’s free-kick but never looked a cohesive, consistently threatening unit."

The Times, Matt Hughes: "Chelsea extended their lead over Manchester United at the top to two points, but Carlo Ancelotti, the manager, will view the result as a missed opportunity."

Official Chelsea FC Website: "Despite creating far more chances than our hosts, Chelsea had to settle for a point after falling behind at Hull."

The goals

30′ Mouyokolo 1-0
42′ Drogba 1-1

Warranty

This report is free from all references, innuendos and double entendres relating to the off field activities of players, coaching staff and directors past or present associated with Chelsea Football Club.

Disclaimer

This report represents the personal opinions of the reporter, is totally subjective and based loosely on events seen on an Italian satellite transmission in a pub. Player ratings are not based on any statistical method. This report implies no fitness for purpose, should not be relied upon and acts merely as a filler for the page header for subsequent attachment of user comments discussing the personal hurt suffered by Wayne Bridge.

The preamble

It was tricky finding a local pub screening this game since most were showing the FA Cup tie of Crystal Palace v Wolverhampton Wanderers. Obviously I would have preferred to have travelled to the game but after I discovered that the bus journey from Stamford Bridge was more than the 45 minutes I realised this was a Bridge too far.

The match

We were poor. Very poor.

Lots of poor passes, bad decision making and the concession of unnecessary fouls. Stephen Hunt set about being his usual irritable self and this evening decided to pick a fight with Ivanovic. If I was going to pick a fight I’d choose Deco but eventually Hunt succeeded in winding up Ivanovic to the point where his retaliation got him booked.

Lots of scrappy play from both sides for the first half hour but then came a Hull corner and we succumbed to our Achilles heel of conceding from a set play. We never score from corners so the questions to be asked are:

1. Are we crap at corners
2. Is everyone else great at defending corners
3. Are we crap at defending corners
4. Is everyone else great at taking corners

I’ll go for options 1 and 3. Hull floated in a corner, Cech gave the impression that he was going to come for it and then decided to stay rooted to his line as Mouyokolo headed in unchallenged from six yards.

For several spells we had plenty of possession but poor movement and lack of an incisive pass meant we were going nowhere. Just before half time we won a free kick on the left edge of the Hull box. Drogba stepped up to place a decent free kick inches inside the upright to equalise.

Second half saw a couple of chances but was mostly a blur of pointless triangles interrupted by tedious booing each time JT got the ball. Hull themselves had a few chances and we did succeed in making them look half decent. Towards the end the recently introduced Sturridge had a good shot from outside the box well saved by Myhill.

Player ratings

Hull is the only UK city to have white telephone boxes because their local exchange is privatised. Using phones as the scoring theme…

Satellite phone (best), Smartphone (including Blackberry), Landline (average), Red Telephone Box, White Telephone Box (completely out of place)

• Cech - Red Telephone Box - causing too much uncertainty
• Ivanovic - Landline - strong and forceful at times, wasteful at others
• Carvalho - Red Telephone Box - if it’s not Cech to blame at the corners it’s got to be him
• Terry - Landline - steady and got on with it
• Lampard - Landline - ok but a few passes that caused the pub crowd to groan
• Ballack - Landline - worked hard
• Malouda - Red Telephone Box - going through the motions
• Zhirkov - Landline - got his head down and got on with it without complaint (but that could be because he can’t speak English)
• Deco - Red Telephone Box - too many poor passes
• Drogba - Landline - but only because he scored otherwise pretty hopeless
• Anelka - Red Telephone Box - was he miffed that Drogba has returned. Transformed from his recent sparkling form back to le sulk

Man of the Match

Are you serious?

Conclusion

Having seen Rooney score at Arsenal on Sunday followed by this evening’s performance I must now brace myself for an agonising finale to the season but as a lifelong Chelsea fan what’s new? Sorry to interrupt, you may now continue discussing Wayne’s emotional state.

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• Reaction: Looking forward

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Newspaper reports

Sunday Telegraph, Graham Chase: "For a while there was a sanctuary for John Terry as revelations about his private life were ignored amid headers and clearances, and he came up with a winner to move Chelsea four points clear at the top of the table."

The Observer, Paul Wilson: "Terry went about his business here as if nothing had happened, which took some doing, even for someone with a reputation for playing away. Facing down his detractors with an expression of stone, Terry endured the boos and kept Burnley’s attack at bay before getting forward at the end to rescue his attack. The Burnley crowd did not hurl anything particularly witty or vindictive at the England captain in any case, and as Alastair Campbell turned up at half-time for a presentation Terry may not even have been the most unpopular person on the pitch."

Sunday Times, Jonathan Northcroft: "It seemed entirely predictable under sport’s perverse laws that if some participant was to be the victory-bringer, it would be Chelsea’s disgraced captain, but it also seemed fairly irrelevant. In scoring — with a firm downward header from 10 yards, when Frank Lampard played in an 82nd-minute corner and Burnley’s defenders left him inexplicably unmarked — Terry confirmed that he is a competitor of strong character. Unfortunately, he is also an individual with a flimsy one — as the latest headlines about his pecadillos attest."

Independent on Sunday, Steve Tongue: "Flawed character he may be, but for all the unwanted publicity down the years surrounding him and his ill-starred family, John Terry has never allowed his football to be affected. Apparently oblivious to all the fuss that followed the latest unsavoury allegations about his private life, he not only strolled through yesterday’s game but even had the audacity and sense of drama to win it for Chelsea with a powerful late header."

Official Chelsea FC Website: "It was a typically strong-minded contribution from the captain on a weekend when his private life is featured heavily in the press and was the result of a Chelsea performance that improved once Burnley had been allowed to equalise, Joe Cole having a ‘goal’ ruled out for a debatable offside before Terry’s winner."

The goals

26′ Anelka 0-1
49′ Fletcher 1-1
82′ Terry 1-2

The preamble

Mrs ChelseaTony is away this weekend, celebrating her dad’s birthday. I therefore thought it would be a weekend of beer, porn, football, takeaways, DVD concerts and golf. Well, the diktat to ‘fix the shower before it ends up falling through the floor by the time I get home’ put paid to most of that. I’ll leave it to you discerning readers to decide which was jettisoned and which was salvaged.

The other distraction was of course the unfolding media and tabloid frenzy surrounding the story of John Terry’s unswerving ability to point a bloody rocket launcher at his feet and fire. First we had the Manchester City will he/won’t he debacle. Then the uncomfortable email hawking of his England captaincy for sponsorship deals. Then brown paper bags exchanging hands for unofficial tours of Cobham, allegedly to be given straight to charity. Add to this the unsavoury stories of shoplifting and drug dealing parents and one can’t help wondering whether there really can be this much smoke without a fire somewhere. So, has he learnt any lessons? It would appear not, because he then stupidly takes out one of the heinous super injunctions in order to stop details of a sleazy affair with a team mate’s ex-girlfriend. There is an old saying ‘Publish and be damned’, advice he might well have heeded instead of twisting the Fleet Street Lion’s tail thus enraging it and motivating them to whisk up more faux outrage and a witch hunt with all the momentum to make the pathetic Ross/Brand non-story seem like nothing more than a national raised disapproving eyebrow.

He was of course, wrong. Wrong to do it, wrong to get caught and wrong to try and cover it up. But affairs are hardly earth shattering news stories in the 21st century, just as they weren’t in the latter liberated part of the 20th century. George Best was an inveterate drunk and serial womaniser, but most people forgave those foibles in favour of his awesome and precocious talent. And then we look at Stan Bowles (gambler extraordinaire), Justin Fashanu (allegedly reduced to being a rent boy through football’s rampant homophobia), Paul Merson (a drunk), Paul McGrath (another drinker) and Stan Collymore (dogger, manic depressive and alleged woman beater). Football, as with music, TV and cinema, takes young people, pays them huge amounts of money, builds them to be heroes with lavish lifestyles way beyond what most of us can imagine. The media plays their part and expects them to don a dog collar and act like Mother Theresa, consequently delighting in then dismantling these stars under the pre-text of national outrage by proxy. The ‘working classes’ are then polled in order to display this apparent national outrage in order to get a resignation or sacking which perpetuates yet more controversy and faux outrage. Of course England captains are special, unlike say Chelsea captains for example who presumably the press would expect to be morality free zones.

Of course all previous England captains have been role models haven’t they? Paradigms of high morality and flawless principle? Let’s look at a few then shall we? Let’s start with Bobby Moore… a string of failed businesses, a burnt down pub, shady links to East End gangsters and an alleged ludicrous trumped theft charge, all of which whilst never confirmed left a slight whiff around the great man which pretty much shafted his career within football and saw him reduced to radio punditry. Kevin Keegan then? Yes, the self same Keegan who in front of 80,000 Wembley punters ended up in a full on fist fight with Billy Bremner. Twice. Brian Robson then, Captain Marvel himself. Of course his alleged re-fuelling habits were purported to have outdone Gazza by some distance. Tony Adams, a great England captain but dogged by alcoholism and even a prison sentence. David Beckham had a much publicised fling with z-lister Rebecca Loos. Go to other sports with arguably more Corinthian values than football, such as cricket. Ian Botham anyone? Andrew Flintoff anyone? Still if the FA or Capello stupidly succumb to the media cries for JT’s head they can always opt for Rio… oops, forgot about the drugs thing. Ok, Steven Gerrard then… oh yeah, the violent nightclub thug… oops. Wayne Rooney then? Oh sorry, forgot about the smoking pictures… oh and the pension drawing hookers. Still there’s always Frank Lampard.

I trust Capello will be given full autonomy over any decision and if he’s as good at man management and seeing the big picture as everyone thinks then I reckon he’ll err on the side of common sense.

I guess my point is that no-one is perfect no matter what their public image projection is. Men will always be ruled by their second and arguably more powerful penis-brain. And women will always fall for money over charm, intellect and integrity. Vanessa Perroncell is actively hawking her story to the tabs as I write. Proof, if it were needed that she must be devastated by the whole thing. John Terry is a fool. But can any of us hold up our hands and say we’ve lived such pious and reverential lives, never having done anything illegal or morally dubious? Infidelity is a very human condition and long after we’ve all shuffled off this mortal coil footballers, actors, barmen, waitresses, police officers, judges, barristers, bin men, traffic wardens and even priests will continue to play away from home. And of course the media will always play their part by deciding that this is a controversy, and hence by reporting it they then feed the controversy, which then allows them to report on the controversy growing by the hour (copyright Charlie Brooker). It’s a self fulfilling news story and it’s a very sad mad world in which the national moral compass is decided by rags such as the News of the World or any Murdoch organ, or the vile Daily Mail.

The game

Well, all of the previous seems to have hijacked the achievement of winning a potentially tricky tie. But here goes…

No major surprises on the team front, with Carlo opting to keep the under fire John Terry in the team, a good move overall, for his own sanity but also because as fate would decide, he also won the game for us. Deco was left on the bench after a stunning role as Le Volant on Wednesday against in form Birmingham. Instead he opted to start the impressive Zhirkov out on the left with Joe Cole on the right, and Anelka doing basically whatever his ‘Esprit de France’ wanted. Tactics, schmactics, formations etc… if you’re lit up by these then feel free to wander over the to BBC or The Grauniad (sic) where you can join in the communal jizz-fest of formations with other like minded individuals.

Burnley are a bright light in the Premiership with a good home record, but like so many other newly promoted clubs an abysmal away record. The recent loss of the impressive Owen Coyle to rivals and neighbours Bolton still stings, and the slightly odd appointment of Brian Laws may well yet seal their fate. I have fond memories of Burnley from the late 60’s and early 70’s especially the true comb over king, Ralph Coates. I hear good things about the pies on sale at Turf Moor, which when compared to the dog meat disasters dished up at Stamford Bridge must be something delightful for the original Claret and Blue faithful.

We started brightly again which seems an increasingly familiar and welcome trend in my view. First half possession must have been frighteningly in our favour although a weird air shot miss by Anelka was the only stand out moment until the goal. Yes, it was pretty, and yes it was good to watch, but the attempts stats after 35 minutes of two to us and one to Burnley showed that actually nothing much happened. The goal itself was marvellous. A super throw out clearance by Cech found a lively Joe Cole who delivered a lovely cross to an improving Malouda to pass back to Anelka who slotted home comfortably. From keeper to goal in 11 seconds, marvellous. More please Mr Cech. Still we had a lead at half time and despite a minor slip by Alex all of the players had turned in a decent shift. It had the hallmarks of a goal fest for the second half with the gulf in class between the sides being as glaringly obvious as a festering boil on the delightful face of my favourite newsreader de jour, Susanna Reid.

So, imagine the mystified silence from every Chelsea fan when three minutes after the restart, Burnley had the temerity to equalise! It was just about their first attempt on target but despite a hint of handball, a great finish leaving Cech no chance. Alex did cock up as well though, and he won’t be happy with his part in the goal. Apparently he just ran off the pitch at the end refusing to acknowledge the away fans. A sulk? An injury? I’d like to know why he reacted like this at the final whistle when every other player did their bit. I hope it was injury really because he really had quite a good game despite the error. Let’s face it Carvalho did similar cock ups against Birmingham twice but got away with his errors. From that slight shock we then woke up. Again, tons of possession but this time creating far more chances than in the first half. Burnley were run ragged and when the winner came the only surprise was that we weren’t already two or three in front already. And yet, the game seemed devoid of passion. The perceived increasing apathy of the crowd seemed to drain the game of any real passion, although that’s my perception, no doubt fed by the ESPN growing boredom from the usually excellent John Champion commentating.

And so, as alluded to earlier, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Even if he has cometh in the wrong places lately. John Terry pops up with nine minutes to go with a powered header from 10 yards out. A muted celebration said more than enough about his state of mind, and the reaction from the team seemed to indicate that unity is a key part of the current form. I didn’t see any evidence of an undermined team spirit as the other players clamoured to congratulate their captain. From that point on it was game over. A potentially tricky game had been deservedly won. I just hope Carlo doesn’t win the dreaded Manager of the Month award!

So, overall, as someone described on the immediate post match comments, this was indeed an almost Mourinho-esque display, which might go someway to why it’ll be described as a professional and competent display rather than a passionate thriller. Like many others I rather like seeing teams like Burnley invert the commonly held belief that only money can ensure survival at the top table of the Premiership, and on the day they acquitted themselves well but just didn’t have the class. As for us, competent displays all around with no disappointments anywhere mean that choosing the Man of the Match will be tricky. But I’ll stir the pot and select one anyway.

The good

• Branislav Ivanovic. Reassuringly reliable and hard working. An unsung class act that for me is possibly the best right-back on show anywhere.
• John Terry. Enough said about foolhardy stereotypically male behaviour. Putting yourself out there on public display and turning in a good performance took guts.
• The performance. Always a chance of a Wigan repeat here, but unlike our two main rivals we didn’t choke.
• Yuri Zhirkhov. Gives Carlo yet another selection headache but yes, he does look the real deal.
• Alex and Anelka. I reads Habs’ comments and watched the game last night with the benefit of the replay and pause facility. Alex made one howler for the goal but other than that was rock steady and Anelka was no more than a tad below the usual high standard.
• Petr Cech, for once looked commanding in the area and finally seems to have mastered the throw out as opposed to the mindless hoof. The clearance for the goal was phenomenal.
• Joe Cole. Patently still short of being a 90 minute player but improving every game and superb assist for first goal. We’d be mad to let him go.
• Ray Wilkins. A pre match interview where he was quite brilliant in his answers and refusal to be baited on the JT affair. At times he looked as menacing as Grant Mitchell. Well done Ray, there’s no doubting your allegiance and commitment to team spirit.

The bad

• The John Terry stuff, of which I’m as guilty of propagating in this article. But I’m a fan and admirer of our man, plus Chelsea is in my soul. The rest is just sensationalist cobblers designed to shift print.
• That’s it really. Burnley were hard working and committed but we were more so.

Player ratings

This is rare. In my opinion everyone was pretty much the same yesterday, somewhere in the 7 or 8 from 10 category, with slight increases for Joe Cole, John Terry and Branners. Why is this rare? Simply because when 11 men are on the field it’s easy to see the X’s as we categorise them at work (exceeded all objectives) or the P’s (poor performance), but in this case I would have to give everyone the G grade (good overall performance), with the three aforementioned players being classed as strong G’s. That and the fact that I’m knackered, aching and still faced with completing this bathroom project before Dragon Control returns mean I just can’t be arsed.

Manager rating - 9/10 – has regained that golden touch and I am now warming to him. I loved his reaction to the question of whether he’d be in front of the TV for the Arsenal/United game.

“Yes, of course because if I’m behind it the game is impossible to see.”

Football manager with sense of humour shock is never going to make a headline though is it?

Overall team performance – 8/10 – professional, competent, tidy and most of all consistent. Just like the good old days.

Man of the Match

John Terry was brave and scored a corking winner BUT was he any better than normal? Maybe a little, but for me, yet again the player who was flawless yesterday and is quietly becoming one of our untouchables is Branislav Ivanovic.

Final thoughts

I’m watching Sunday Supplement as I finish this post off and am refreshed that what I expected to be a John Terry lynching has in fact turned out to be a well reasoned rational discussion with all three guest journos backing JT to stay as England captain. I’m also in the Habs camp on questioning the level of the crime here. Wayne Bridge wasn’t with this woman when JT decided to share the Terry baby gravy with Vanessa Perroncell. So where is the crime. As Clive also stated, Ashely Cole’s passable impression of Jenson Button in a 50 mph zone was potentially the more serious misdemeanour. If he’d killed or injured someone then these days a prison sentence can follow. Just ask Lee Hughes.

Back to football matters though and apologies for the Terry bias on this post. We look bloody good at the moment and even a hardened pessimist like me can see little wrong. At the risk of homogenisation of the team, we have an overall consistency throughout the squad which means there aren’t any really weak areas on the pitch. As a team manager at work that sort of thing is a joy to manage. And Carlo looks like a man enjoying every aspect of our beloved club. This win means a relaxing Sunday (bathrooms aside) with a decent warm up game for Pompey and Citeh, followed by the big game at The Emirates. Let’s hope for a result whereby they kick 10 bells of shit out of each other for a 0-0 draw.

Hull on Tuesday gives us a good chance to put some clear blue sky between us and the loathsome Mancs and Arsene’s Newborns.

Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!

Related links

• Reaction: Professional focus
• Fabio Capello has a very big decision to make on John Terry’s captaincy future
• John Terry faces career and marriage crisis over affair revelations

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Newspaper reports

The Guardian, Dominic Fifield: "Beating Birmingham City in a Premier League match never used to constitute a statement of intent but, with this victory, Chelsea sent out a message to their title rivals. Carlo Ancelotti’s side returned to the top of the last night, edging ahead of Manchester United and Arsenal, having barely broken sweat against the top-flight’s form team."

Daily Telegraph, Jason Burt: "Birmingham City arrived at the Bridge with a painstakingly, proudly constructed record of 15 unbeaten matches. A wall of formidable resistance, surely? It met a wrecking ball. Chelsea smashed them and, once more, sit handsomely on top of the Premier League pile. Lords of the manor. It was like a house of cards being disdainfully cuffed. And Joe Cole, dancing, jinking Joe on this form, was Chelsea’s ace in the pack. A diamond performance."

The Times, Matt Hughes: "Carlo Ancelotti’s side returned to the top of the Barclays Premier League with a victory as routine as it was predictable and are likely to have stretched their lead to four points by the time Arsenal meet Manchester United on Sunday. Any team finishing above them in May will surely be crowned champions."

Official Chelsea FC Website: "Chelsea returned to the top of the Premier League with a swaggering display against Birmingham at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night. It was a superb 90 minutes, with Birmingham’s notoriously hard to beat defence broken down time and again…"

The goals

5′ Malouda 1-0
32′ Lampard 2-0
90′ Lampard 3-0

The preamble

So, first of all an apology. I missed the first ten minutes of the game as I didn’t get back from work until late, so everything that follows is only based on the eighty minutes I saw. Hopefully the first ten minutes weren’t so different from the rest of the game, though obviously I did miss out on the opening goal.

We were up against a Birmingham team that are on the best run in the club’s history – 15 unbeaten. We also struggled to dominate in a goalless draw played a month ago at their place. Since then we have been in fine form though, winning four out of four and scoring 16 goals in the process. And let’s face it, we go on 15 games unbeaten runs just for fun, so Chelsea went into this game firm favourites.

The formation

Carlo stuck with the 4-5-1 while Drogs is still away in Africa:

Cech, A Cole, Terry, Carvalho, Ivanovic, Malouda, Lampard, Deco (playing as the ’steering wheel’), Ballack, J Cole, Anelka.

Without trying to get to tactical, as frankly I got a bit lost reading some of the analysis of the Cole/Lampard/Malouda balance last week, the 4-5-1 again seemed to be subtly different from Mourinho’s, allowing Malouda a lot of freedom. In my view it was quite a Mourinho-esque performance though.

The first half

In the fifth minute Joe Cole did some good work on the right, crossed for Malouda, and a short range header put us one-nil up. Another strong home start from Chelsea follows on from the Sunderland game where we really went out and grabbed the match by the throat from the opening whistle. We then continued to dominate, Ivanovic shooting narrowly wide and Hart saving from Lamps. The opening half hour is all Chelsea: a few dribbles and shots from Joe, and some deflections earning us corners after blocks from the Birmingham defence. Lampard is dictating play, spraying the ball about and trying to find that killer pass.

Despite the dominance and a few saves from Hart we still haven’t had that gilt-edged chance for the second, and this is down to deep (and sometimes desperate) defending from Birmingham, a lot of which relies on the whole team concentrating. Luckily for us after half an hour of chasing shadows they switch off for a fraction of a second as Ballack knocks it square from the right to Super Frank, who has five yards of space. By the time the defender has closed the gap the ball is nestled in the bottom left corner of the goal. 2-0.

A few minutes later Chelsea give away two free kicks in quick succession. A feeling of deja vu descends because in both cases when Terry starts waving the line of defenders up the pitch the line just seems to be drop deeper. Luckily the first free kick is poor, and the second Cech is able to claim in a crowded area. I had imagined we’d ironed out this particular issue on the training pitch. A bit of impetus is needed to make sure we don’t coast too much, and just before half time Ballack provides it. Chasing down a misplaced pass he gives 100% to make sure the ball doesn’t roll out for a City goal kick, sliding round the defender and forcing him to keep the ball in play. The loose ball then ends up with Bowyer on the touch line, and running back Ze German catches him in possession with a sliding challenge that causes Chelsea to win the throw. It sums up his half really; Ballack has been ruthless whilst Brum’s midfield has been toothless.

The second half

Ten minutes or so into the second half we nearly got the second but Hart saves well from Ballack’s header back across goal after Ashley crossed in. We’ve started where we left off, dominating the game from midfield, and I can’t help feeling if we just up the pace we’ll get the third and maybe the floodgates will open. Malouda is also putting in a few nice crosses from the left, and the next chance comes from one of his corners, but it drops behind Terry and his overhead kick ends up in the stands.

Another ten minutes of Chelsea domination follows before Ivanovic plays a beautiful Lampard-esque reverse pass through to Joe Cole on the right, who squares first time for Malouda. His shot is hard and low but just to close to Hart. Birmingham then wake up, and it is Chelsea’s turn to defend for a few minutes. As we get the offside trap wrong it leaves a Birmingham player in acres of space by the byline on the left, but rather than capitalising on the mistake he hits a cross across the area, which Lamps heads clear. He’d obviously spotted the danger and tracked his man all the way back into our area, and in the end it’s all pretty simple to keep Brum at bay.

Chelsea create the next chance after Deco nips in to rob the ball in the Birmingham half. We scramble it into the area and the ball bounces off Nico and Malouda near the six yard box before Hart is able to make a straightforward save from an Ashley Cole snap shot.

We continue the scrappy play a few minutes later when our back four obviously decide they want a bit more to do. As Benitez (on for McFadden) harmlessly chases down the ball Carvalho knocks it to Terry, who lays it back to Cech to thump up field. Instead he plays it back to Riccy again, but the ball isn’t passed on the floor and by the time it’s under control Riccy is under pressure and so smashes it straight into the head of an opposition player twenty yards away. It bounces to Benitez, who Terry closes down immediately. The ball then breaks to Fahey, and Cech atones for his part in the cock-up with a good tip over the bar.

Rather than be spurred on by that chance, for the rest of the match Birmingham continue to plod on in the same vein. Or, to put it another way, we continue to utterly dominate. Joe Cole is substituted on the eighty-minute mark for Zhirkov, and shortly afterwards Sturridge comes on for Anelka. In the final minute Brum try one more move but run out of ideas in our half, and Deco sets up a counter attack by feeding Malouda on the right. Sturridge breaks outside him, bursting forward, but Malouda instead plays it the other way for Lampard to receive just on the edge of the area. One touch with his right and then Frank drives it left footed back across Hart. Game over.

Player ratings

As requested by BlueBoyDave, I decided to go with a Roman-army theme for the ratings tonight.

• Legionary – Joe Cole. A good soldier, but not yet shown enough to earn the double wages that are pocketed by the…
• Optios – Cech and Carvalho. Some may think it a bit harsh to rate these two above Joe Cole, especially as they conspired to almost gift Brum a goal, but I feel although they did less on the whole they did it better.
• Centurions – Ashley Cole, Terry, Ivanovic, Anelka, Deco, Ballack. All real leaders tonight. Terry and Ballack (especially in the first half) may just have edged above the others, but they all performed well. Which English sides wouldn’t all these players walk into? Answer: none.
• Primus Pilus – The head centurions, Lamps and Malouda. Both fantastic for 90 minutes (OK, I’m guessing about the first 10, but hey). Lampard has really flourished with the return to 4-5-1. Is it possible he’ll get to 20 goals for the season after the slow start? I don’t really care if he continues to dictate play like he did today. With him on form in midfield that clean sheet looks so much easier.

The analysis

So I mentioned the Mourinho-esque performance earlier; by this I meant we controlled the game and once we had the second goal were happy to keep it that way and not go all out for more. Part of this may be down to Birmingham who to my mind showed a lack of ambition in trying to regain parity, defending deep and restricting us to playing the ball about in front of their lines of defence. I don’t think we weren’t trying to score, we just didn’t go hell for leather for the third and fourth. Many of our chances were barely chances at all, either counter attacks where Brum still had all four defenders back or shots from 25 yards. My match report maybe doesn’t do justice to the chances we created, reflected by the 17 shots on target and eight corners, but there are only so many times you can write about a shot coming in under pressure and the ‘keeper making a regulation stop. We also had some good crosses come in, particularly from Malouda who was good with the corners too.

Picking out Malouda also means I should mention a couple of other individuals too I guess, and I’ll pick on Deco and Joe Cole. Deco had a good game in the ’steering wheel’, and he is finally beginning to win me round. He’ll never be a Chelsea great (how I hope he proves me wrong by scoring in a cup final), but it was nice to see him win some challenges and put in the effort on the fundamentals, like getting to the ball first, rather than just expecting to be the creator and nothing else. Joe Cole gets a mention as I think he is coming off badly playing opposite Malouda. Florent seems tactically more astute, and combines with Ashley, Frank and Nico well, whereas for me Joe hasn’t really found his place in Carlo’s team. I wonder if Joe would be able to enjoy his game more if it was Drogba as the lone striker rather than Anelka – he’d certainly know where to expect Drog to be more of the time.

Reading those two paragraphs again they seem a bit downbeat, but actually I thought we bordered on the majestic at times. At least eight of our team get an 8/10 and above. McLeish’s side didn’t get a look in, with their best chance coming from a Chelsea mistake, and the fact a team who are unbeaten in 15 didn’t have any ideas how to get back in the game showed quite how good we were. I have a feeling that, perhaps with the exception of the Arse and Man Ure, any side in front of us tonight would just not have been able to get to grips with the game. The whole team seemed determined to win the game and return to the top of the league. Which we did.

P.S. I’m still chuckling at Liverpoo…

Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!

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A meditation on the rise of the Scottish detective and the fall of Scottish football

(Author’s note: as this piece was written by someone who is not Scottish, a detective or a footballer and, as will become clear not a writer either, any offence to the Scottish people through racial or cultural stereotyping is purely accidental and the result of careless ignorance emanating from a vacuous mind singularly unencumbered by original thought.)

As we hurtle past Burns night and towards a vital Wednesday night collision with Birmingham now managed by Alex McLeish, the living embodiment of Horatio Caine (CSI Miami - played by David Caruso), it’s hard not to start thinking about two significant Caledonian trends in the last 40 years. The rise of the Scottish detective and the decline of the Scottish footballer.

Scanning my bookshelves I note several Rebus novels (by Ian Rankin) and a couple featuring Jack Laidlaw (by William McIlvanney), sterling illustrations of the genre now referred to in some parts as ‘Tartan Noir’. There are plenty more examples known, I’m sure, to those better read in these matters than myself.

Now this development has not been without its critics within the Scottish arts community but what I think they have failed to grasp is that this was the only sure outlet whereby their society could emotionally manage its reaction to the vertiginous decline in the production of quality professional footballers relative to the size of its population.

Indeed the rise of detective fiction itself was not enough and the pressing need for deep self examination bled over into mainstream television with the likes of the eponymous Taggart (Mark McManus), DCI Walker (David Hayman) in Trial and Retribution, DCI Red Metcalf (Ken Stott) in Messiah and DCI Chappell (Ken Stott and we’re not finished with him yet) in The Vice. Not all of the programmes were based north of the Border, but all shared the same grey urban backdrop with a creased, hard bitten, tough smoking, snarling drinking Scotsman questioning, investigating and searching evermore desperately for answers in a barely concealed metaphor for Scotland’s vain hunt for its once great footballing prowess.

A lot of crime fiction covers the same ground but Scottish detective fiction has its own particular thematic focus. Some would highlight the influence of Calvinism in Scottish culture giving rise to a constant philosophic debate over the nature of sin and predestination, ever-present guilt, certainty of the presence of evil. Others may see an inbuilt Gaelic pessimism about the struggle against a malign fate.

Many outsiders may just put it all down to the dark winter days and the shed loads of rain. After all, is our growing appetite for Swedish crime fiction following the success of Wallander, not a natural progression to somewhere with even darker winters where we maintain the same watch over a man’s struggle, not only with the incipient evil that lurks below our supposed western liberal society, but with his own private demons? Of course they’re now Lutherans and handle the bad weather rather better, but these are mere details.

For this is a long way from the gentle Scottish village whimsy of “Brigadoon”, “Local Hero”, “Monarch of the Glen” and “Balamory”. There is certainly no place for Hamish Macbeth in this gallery of tough minded existentialists. Indeed we’d all have been better off if Hamish had suffered the same fate as his fellow copper Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man. A good example of what happens when pastoral whimsy turns bad in remote places.

Looking at all those detectives with tired, furrowed brows, faces exhausted with confronting the beast of evil and smelling its fetid breath in their every pore, it is not difficult to imagine Alex Ferguson, Walter Smith, or Jim Jeffries edging down a railway embankment in the morning drizzle, ducking under the tape and nodding to a kneeling constable who pulls back the poly sheeting to reveal another mutilated corpse before exhaling “Jesus Christ, she was only a kid” and turning away with disgust, but not surprise, at the depth of human depravity.

And they follow in the finest traditions of Scottish football management because let’s face it Bill Shankly, Jock Stein and Tommy Docherty all looked very capable of barging into a room full of detectives and shouting "Now it’s a murrdurr an’ this time we’re ganna nail the wee shite!” or giving an unsavoury type from the backstreets of Glasgow a swift knee in the unmentionables to encourage co-operation.

So where has it all gone wrong? There are no easy answers I’m afraid. But you can be sure that every time a Scottish copper gazed with barely concealed despair at another bloodied corpse or picked through the detritus of another brutal butchering, we were witnessing a nation combing the scene for a clue to what had been done to its footballing soul. Somewhere out there in the dark, urban Gothic cityscape lay a clue to the disappearance of a once great tradition.

And just as Laidlaw or Taggart fought to hold back the rising tide of human destruction, so it is that Ferguson, Smith and their compatriots have fought to keep alive a belief in their footballing culture against ever mounting odds. But like many a Scottish detective, they are now more often outside their homeland than within it.

As on the streets, so on the pitch. The existential exhaustion so evident in the detective is mirrored in a nation’s footballers. Was it cause or effect? We don’t yet know. Deep in the male Scot’s psyche did something finally give way and refuse to fight, to follow the painful Calvinist path to certainty, leaving Fergie and his peers as the last great generation.

For there was a change. Perhaps the last legion of truly, great footballers to emerge were the generation of Dalgleish, Souness, Strachan. And while they exhibited all the old grit and skill on the pitch, they now look like men whose greatest existential angst comes with their choice of suit for the studio and the prospect of talking to Richard Keys. The signs were there, even if unread at the time, that those coming after might lack the necessary backbone to take the struggle forward.

As managers they look more like deskmen, bureaucrats, the sort of Police Chief who’s only interested in his stats and PR. What happens out in the glowering, concrete wastes can all be reduced to numbers. Whatever was changing out on the streets to throttle the supply of tough, skilled practitioners of the footballing arts was not their concern. They merely log it and accept it.

Of today’s troop, while Levein, Moyes, Burley are all fine in their way, none of them looks like the sort of man who’s ready for the mean streets. Indeed Moyes’ unnerving stare makes him more like someone DCI Chappell would have been chasing down in Messiah. But they still have some vestige of those bygone generations, while sadly the young players of today suggest that the gene that gave us the Lisbon Lions has somehow been bred out of the race.

To demonstrate what I mean, you only have to look at what happened when they brought Rebus to TV. In the first series he was played by John Hannah. Now, his expression when confronted by the depths of human degradation were similar to those of an office worker returning to find the photocopier had jammed halfway through a document run.

They soon realised the error of their ways and hauled in the fabulously rumpled Ken Stott for the later series. Now they were cooking. Now we were examining in depth the frailties of the human condition and, all too clearly the frailties of modern Scottish football. (By the way Stott is a Hearts fan and said that playing Rebus, a Hibs fan, was more difficult than playing Hitler.)

But even the Calvinist has hope (I think). On Saturday lunchtime on ITV we were treated to Billy Davis, currently managing Forest acting as a pundit for our game against Preston. He has the look of a man who could watch an autopsy and then eat a fry up without pausing. And returning to Alex Mcleish, while he does have a touch of the Horatio Caine about him there is unmistakably a growing air of the Scottish detective in there. Not for him the sunshine and science of Miami, but rainy days and cracking heads in Sauchiehall Street.

So perhaps some few still carry the DNA and with the march of science, who knows, a new generation of footballing giants may be bred. But that tips us into the shiny antiseptic world of science and away from the grimy, diseased streets home to our beloved Scottish detective. What then of them in the bright and shining future? What does Scotland want more?

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