Question: How do you beat Chelsea at Stamford bridge? Answer: You don’t. (Courtesy: ESPN)

Man Utd started strongly. And then for about 75 minutes, only one team played football. The ‘champions’ were raided, ragged and ridiculed. Only a terrible Anelka and a poor Joe Cole prevented a total annihilation of Man Reds. We out-thought, outplayed, out-passed and out-shot Man Utd so much that it feels like a win. We weren’t sharp in taking our chances but there’s no denial that we created chances at will whereas Man Utd could only wait for some occasional counterattacks and some lucky loose balls. If you’re Manure fan that happen to read this, you’re never going to agree, but do I care?

Chelsea dominated the match. We had 25 shots to Man Utd’s 15. We had 61% possession against the defending champions. Man Utd were forced to sit back and defend, not for 10 or 15 minutes, for about 75 minutes. In this process, they wasted time whenever possible, they played ugly, collected about 7 cards and always a tackle away from a red card. It is certainly a moral victory for Chelsea that we made the defending champions look so bad. We could have done a lot of good if we had started briskly. We were sluggish at the start and that’s what Man Utd exploited and took the lead.

Chelsea had to lose Deco as late as in the warm-up before the game. That meant a surprise start to not-fully-fit Ballack and also some strategic changes in the game plan. Otherwise, our starting line-up was the same as the one that played in the last match. Felipe says that we needed some time to settle down with this sudden change and Man Utd made the best use of that time.

For me, the best players of the match were Mikel and Lampard. The man of the match has to be Mikel. He was simply outstanding. he absolutely bossed his area. He won possession with considerable ease and also retained it with some style. He could never be hurried on the ball and even in this high tempo match, he seemed to have lots of time on the ball. Though he started in the defensive midfield, as the game progressed and the situation changed, he cleverly played various roles and covered a lot of ground. Towards the last half hour, he also advanced to the final third and looked much more dangerous. He had a major part in the equaliser too. His free kick was just perfect. It was a very well paced and weighted delivery which should end in a goal without doubt. Mikel should start in every single match and in case of need, can also be used as ‘holding attacking midfielder’. Now, how does that sound?

Lampard serves us another 8/10 performance. He is always known for his robotic consistency of his high standard game. He seems to be better his own records. Today, he was again, just too good. His passes were not put to good use by our forwards. But he was brilliant. Ballack, Deco or Kaka – you put anyone with him, he will just go on. He has been raising his game to beat his competition. that’s what he did with Ballack’s arrival and now with Deco. Lampard is still Lampard. Trust him, he delivers. Every single match.

I thought Ballack may not be fit to play for more than 45 minutes but he played on for 70 minutes. There were no signs of him being not fully fit. There were no half measures from the German captain. He made some intelligent passes, forced some saves and he was in action all the time. For a few matches in succession, Malouda was not bad. He was quite good, quite good to the extent that I wasn’t too happy that he was subbed off.

Bosingwa and Ashley Cole were at their best, in defending. In attack, they were very well marked and hence hardly had the space to deliver good crosses. Bosginwa was slightly at fault for their goal. He did not try enough to keep Evra in check, or he made a bad decision. Despite that, he gave a very good performance. Ashley Cole is like Lampard in the sense that he too keeps giving these 8/10 performances week in week out. Ronaldo didn’t even try to cross path with Ashley Cole. Unfortunately for him, even his countryman Bosingwa was as good as Ashley Cole today.

Two mediocre performers tonight – Cech and Terry. Cech was at fault for the goal. It wasn’t the most difficult shot to hold. It was hit straight at him and that was not even unexpected. Instead of catching it, he let the ball slip which was then easily netted by Park. That was an error by Cech. And that was quite costly. Also there was this poor clearance from him which was almost lobbed to goal by Rooney. Other than that, he hardly had a role to play in the match. In other words, whenever he had to play a role, he didn’t fully impress.

John Terry was not his usual self. He was indecisive, error-prone and in fact an accident waiting to happen. I even feared that he was going to make a silly but expensive blunder that could put the game almost out of our reach to win. In Carvalho’s absence, Terry’s lack of focus looked very disastrous. Credit to Alex. He played like he plays in the Chelsea first team every week. He was very strong in his strides and tackles. He won almost every header that he went for. He wasn’t afraid to throw himself for the interceptions and blocks. Top class stuff from Alex.

The biggest culprits of the day were Anelka and Joe Cole. Smart finishing from both of them would have got us atleast three goals. Joe Cole missed two one-on-one situations, both of which should have been goals. Even Carvalho would have finished them coolly. As for Anelka, all that he had to do was to raise his leg by few inches with somewhat decent timing. I picture myself there at the end of the low cross, could I have finished it? May be yes! Both of them put a lot of pressure on the team by losing possession in key areas. While Joe Cole unnecessarily complicated his ball retention, Anelka was simply too lazy or unresponsive.

Let me say it – Anelka is not Chelsea material. He neither has the quality nor the spirit to play with the likes of Lampard, Ballack, Drogba etc. He does not show his commitment at all. Only in the last 10 minutes or so, I saw Anelka ‘attempting’ to play with some fire. Still he was not good enough and I have my doubts if he would ever become better what he is now. Felipe seems to have some faith in him. If a player like Anelka does not get fired up after Man Utd takes the lead in Stamford Bridge, I have nothing to say. Anelka’s mind is not here, it’s not in the game. Even a Franco di Santo would have done a better job. Kalou was brought on and he made a difference, he caused some trouble for the opponents. Anelka should be told the truth.

When Drogba came on, it was such a relief. Granted, Drogba didn’t do magic today but his presence on the pitch gave me so much strength which is the case I guess would be with the other Chelsea players too. He held the ball well and at times, you could see that he is not fully fit but as long as he’s there, he puts that extra bit of pressure on the defenders.

And can we bring the fear of losing his place for Joe Cole? He can play as poorly as he can and he can start the next match too. This goes on in a loop. In the matches among the big four, you’re not going to get too many chances. If you get one, you need to make the most of it. Joe Cole got many today and made a mess of every single one of them. At one point, it was so frustrating to watch him lose the ball trying to make some silly tip of the toe trick. The game is not about him. It’s about Chelsea having to score three points. I now understand JM’s annoyance with Joe Cole. Like JM, Felipe should say ‘one more match like that, he’s out of my team’. He’s played quite a few like that so he should be on the bench already.

My player rating card could look like this: Cech – 6, Terry – 5, Bosingwa – 7, Ashley Cole – 8, Alex – 8, Mikel – 9, Lampard – 8, Ballack – 7, Malouda – 6, Joe Cole – 4, Anelka – 4, Drogba – 6, Kalou – 7, Carvalho – 6. I’ll tell you what these numbers mean. By BBC’s definition: 10 is pure perfection, 9 is outstanding, 8 is very good, 7 is good, 6 is average, 5 is off colour, 4 is poor, 3 is woeful,  2 is embarrassingly bad and 1 means ‘give up the game.’ Now you can link it up!

Our defence and midfield were rock solid. Did Berbatov play today? Or was Park subbed after his goal? Did we ever break a sweat to dispossess Ronaldo? What was Rooney’s contribution, wouldn’t they have been better off him? Wasn’t Hargreaves repeatedly nullified by Ashley Cole? They must be thankful that this was not a humiliation in the end. Riley gave them 7 yellow cards, deservedly so.

But he showed his very famous Man Utd affiliation on the pitch. Malouda was brought down by van der Sar. For me, that was a clear penalty. And for all the delays, fouls, cards, time wastings etc, the stoppage time was only 3 minutes and when we got the free kick at the edge of the box, there was still half a minute. With half a minute remaining, would a referee blow the final whistle at that stage of the game? Strange.

The home league record continues. Look, I’m very happy and proud about this record but if we were to lose at home, I’ll feel more sad that we’ve lost points than for the loss of a record. Already an unbeaten run for four seasons in a stadium is an unbelievable record and there’s is no shame if it has to end this season. This draw today means we don’t top the table anymore. It is Arsenal now but it’s not a surprise.

Arsenal got to play all the possible relegation battlers such as West Brom, Bolton, Fulham and Newcastle while we had to play Man Utd, Tottenham, Portsmouth and Man City. Arsenal have got their toughest fixtures in October and November. So, by Christmas we should see some sense in the table. Even otherwise, I won’t be worried until they get a lead of more than 11 points. Until then, we know they can collapse and crumble to finish as runner-ups, oops, third lowly place I mean!