Must have been an incredible match! The short story is we conceded three, we were leading at half time, we nearly lost our home league (league + domestic cup, that is) record and score two goals in three minutes to avoid embarrassment. Should have been a good tactical test for the team of Avram, Ten Cate and Clarke, right from the team selection, formation, substitutions and the mentality.

The match was live on Chelsea TV but not on Chelsea TV online, so I couldn’t watch the match. To allow Leicester to score three goals at the Stamford Bridge is not a very nice feeling. The last time we conceded three goals at home was against the Spurs in the FA Cup last season.

After the match, Avram said:

It was a good game. We enjoyed the winning and scoring four goals but we didn’t like what happened in the game because we conceded three goals. More importantly it showed that we have good character. I have never in my life given up until the last moment even if we are losing 2-0. This is football. When we were leading 2-1 we created five chances one-on-one with the goalkeeper. It was fantastic but we should have scored. But that is football. We want to score but we don’t want one goal scored against us. But it was good football today. We played positive football and in the last 10 minutes the players showed they have a big heart and good character and I like that. Sometimes it is more important than other things. We want to progress our game and every game in the last month and a half we have taken lessons from.

Elsewhere it was also reported that he said that 4-3 is better than a 1-0. While that is a different argument altogether, to score our third and fourth goal in the last three minutes after leading the game by half time may not be better. Bad day for Carlo Cudicini. Never gets a match and the match he steps in we concede three goals. Not sure if any of those three goals would have been saved or prevented by Petr Cech.

It’s a nice thing that Shevchenko played all 90+ minutes and scored the most crucial goal of the match. Lampard the midfielder did chip in with just three goals. I felt sad that he couldn’t score against Man City but here he is, making amends with a hattrick. Not bad at all, offensively. We had a goal drought for some time where we used wonder how and where the goals would come from. We certainly seem to have come out of that problem. 12 goals scored in the last three matches would certainly give us the belief to out-score the opponent.

What we saw until the 80th minute is what we are going to see more during African Cup of Nations. There was no Drogba, no Essien, no Mikel and no Kalou. We were trailing 2-3 when Essien stepped in and he seems to have turned the match for us. Let’s get used to a non-African midfield, however difficult it is for us. Lampard has nicely taken the responsibility from Drogba and even scores a hattrick but (a) he can’t do that every match (b) midfield of Sidwell and Maka could hardly win matches for us. Interesting to see how we would plan for and manage their absence for 6 weeks.

To be down 2-3 at the Bridge until the last few minutes must have had Avram’s heart in his mouth. This is the kind of situation where I’d have loved to see Avram operate. I don’t really know how Avram reacted to this situation. The players reacted well allright, but I don’t know if Avram did the right moves, especially in the second half. When we were leading 2-1, at 52 minutes I see that Malouda has been subbed for Ferreira. Now that’s strange unless I miss something.

Avram must have been keen to give us another goal fest. To do that, he was playing with just three defenders for about 40 minutes. Was that the reason why we allowed two nearly giant-killing goals? Strangely, we had no defender in the bench – it had only Hilario, Obi, Essien, Kalou and Malouda. Knowing that Essien need not have to play in defence anymore and was not used in the match in a defensive position, we could have gone in with one defender in the bench.

Anybody who had seen the match should be able to narrate the story. If my armchair arguments are correct, Avram tried to overdo something to show us more goals and nearly lost the match to an English opponent in more than three years, after comfortably leading them at half time. For all his talk yesterday of using youth talents in League Cup, we could have seen only Scott Sinclair, which shows that he wanted to confirm a win and was not keen to really experiment or something. During the course of the match, he saw us showing a stronger display and want to knock Leicester with half a dozen goals which nearly backfired.

All’s well that ends well. We can win as long as we outscore, so we live to fight another day.