This could be a historic night for Chelsea. If we manage to win this tie, for the first time ever, Chelsea would make it to the finals of the Champions League. It can’t be a tougher task than to knockout Liverpool at Anfield. Well, it’s tough but certainly possible. Arsenil eliminated Liverpool from two competitions at Anfield, one of which was humiliating like hell. The task on hand is not to beat them by a three-goal margin like Arsenil did. All that we need is a draw or a score loss with one goal margin.

Bad news once again! Carvalho is out for this season. Jose must be very upset. It was always his idea to go for another centre back in January, but the conflicts with Roman meant that we signed none in January.

He is definitely out. He has injured his knee and it is a big blow for us. He has been our best defender this season – it is as simple as that. We lost at Liverpool in the Premiership without him and we go to Anfield again without him. But when we lost in the league we had to play Paulo Ferreira at centre-back. We have better options for centre-back this time.

Probably, he suggests that Khalid could make his return as the centre back. In Terry’s absence, Carvalho was doing a Terry as much as he can, now I hope Terry does a Carvalho in his absence. This is becoming more like the Maka-Essien situation or call it the Essien-Mikel situation, if you want to do justice to Terry. Ashley Cole has been sufficiently rested ahead of this game while Diarra should take up the right back role. Diarra has been off colour of late, but I rate him highly and he has too much quality to disappoint us too often.

Talking about quality and disappointment in the same line brings me to Sheva. Though he is meant to be man for the European nights, I doubt if Jose would pick Sheva. Jose might again go for a 4-3-3 with Joe Cole and Kalou on either sides of Drogba. As always Drogba picks himself, but I would only hope that he does not get cautioned. Sometimes, Drogba has this nagging behaviour of disturbing the keeper or arguing with referee, which he overdoes and ends up getting yellow cards. Most of his yellow cards are not due to fouls in active play. He should keep his temper in check tomorrow night and can even be subbed if and only if, we go 2-0 up or something. Once we are on the defensive, you’d expect Drogba to drop deeper for defensive duties and there is a high chance of him getting a yellow there. Joe Cole too, will face suspension if he gets carded tomorrow. Ballack has also been ruled for whatever’s left in the season. Ballack’s performance have to be rated better than Sheva’s and in fact, he has been improving steadily as he gains more and more confidence.

Mikel’s emergence has been wonderful for Chelsea. Some players had their opportunities this season – Khalid, SWP, Hilario, Kalou, Diarra, Bridge etc. If I’ve to rank them based on how they have taken their chances and performed, I’d say Mikel, Bridge, Kalou, Hilario, SWP and Khalid. In a season where most of the times we had either Terry or Carvalho missing, Khalid could have become a real star, but he didn’t. When Cech and Cudicini were out, Hilario had a dream start but his limited quality exposed him soon. When Joe Cole and Robben were missing, Kalou and SWP could have cemented their places in the wings, which they quite didn’t. Bridge has had some great performances and he is really unlucky that he has someone like Ashley Cole in his squad. While Bridge can be an almost equal back up for Ashley Cole, it can only be almost. When Essien was out due to injury and Maka not quite at his best, John Obi Mikel made the best of the available opportunities and truly has shown all of us why Chelsea were behind him so much and justfied his price tag and settlement we had to have with Man Utd.

Reina, Agger, Carragher, Gerrard, Kuyt, Riise, Mascherano – all were rested in their weekend loss to Portsmouth. Players like Zenden and Alonso were so crap in the first leg that Rafa had to criticise those unnamed players who he thinks, did not play like it was a European night. Liverpool might start with Crouch in the centre and Kuyt and Bellamy on the wings. I see Sissoko taking Alonso’s place. I dont think Rafa wants to see Agger getting skinned by Drogba once again.

I dont think Liverpool will attack too much. They know that they cannot afford to concede and Chelsea are most dangerous in counterattack. May be they’ll go gung-ho in the second half. Whatever they do, we should not sit back expecting a 0-0 draw. If Liverpool are not able to score, every passing minute will add to their pressure. Liverpool’s comeback from 0-3 to win the champions league was truly phenomenal. Full credit to their will to win. But when you’re in a corner like that, you have nothing to lose, you give your all and if you have the champions’ luck, you might even come out successful. Still, I’d put the probability to doing such a thing at 5%. Now, the chances are 50-50. They can’t throw all that they have and see the match going out of your control.

We all know that Jose Mourinho is an avid student of ‘Art of War’ and also applies the principles of the Chinese classic in his football management. In one of the verses in Art of War, Sun Tzu says:

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

That’s because, if you press the desparate foes too hard, he might try something outrageous and with his heroic effort might even pull off a miracle. How you apply this in football is what differentiates good managers and great managers. Only someone like Jose Mourinho can put this to perfect use in football. I expect Jose to follow the above principle. Otherwise, if we keep frustrating them without scoring, in front of the kops, they might be forced to pull off something spectacular.

In my opinion, we should not look for that early goal. Yes, I said we should not go for that early goal. If we get a goal, we can always take that but we should not get hyper about the early goal. More than an early goal, what could nerve Liverpool, is a game completely controlled and dominated by Chelsea, something like the first half of the first leg.

Am I nervous about this match . . hell yes! Anything can happen but even if I were a neutral, I’d have said that Chelsea are in a better position to go through. Playing the second leg at Anfield was initially thought as an unfortunate draw for Chelsea. But now, with the 1-0 win at home, it is Rafa and Liverpool who are worried about conceding that heavy away goal to Chelsea. It will be a very tight match. I’ll go mad if we have to pay the price for some poor refereeing. I hope UEFA has no problems in seeing a non-G14 club in the finals with a possibility of winning it. We’ll see that tomorrow. I hope it will be a 1-1 or 0-1.

{democracy:36}