Chelsea are back. Well and truly. That was the Chelsea that we all know. Thank Hiddink for that. Liverpool had no clue about what hit them. That was blitzkreig. Chelsea were in their face. The kop must have been shaking in their boots and they must have been relieved that it’s only a 1-3. But they all must know that Chelsea have slain them.

Hiddink certainly had a plan and it went just as per his script. It was clear that we wanted to score goals and we got them. At no point we looked content. 1-1 was a good score to take home but Chelsea were looking for more. 1-2 is a great score but we weren’t done. 1-3 is a sureshot winning score but still we were looking for more goals. If we had taken some of the easy chances we must have ended 1-6. And that’s not an exaggeration at all.

What I love about this result is that it comes after Liverpool’s results against Real Madrid, Man Utd, Aston Villa and the last minute winner against Fulham. They were winning really big and they had to brought down to earth. Not many gave a chance for Chelsea tonight. And, we tore them to pieces. They did the double against us in the league, when Chelsea were aeslehC under Luiz Scolari. Now we’ll do the double against them in the champions league.

I expected Liverpool to come at us and hit us hard. They even started well with another Torres goal. Chelsea didn’t look concerned one bit. We kept attacking them and creating quality chances. I was doubting if Drogba was drunk in the first half. Missed two sitters. That would have been criminal had we not equalised or could not score more. Couple of seasons back, Chelsea produced a similar attacking performance but got only a 1-0 at home. The wasted chances came back to haunt us. We lost the second leg 1-0 and were knocked out in the penalties. Drogba was lucky that his misses were not that costly.

Liverpool sold Riise and thought they are better off but we brought Ivanovic. I don’t know what were the odds for Ivanovic scoring a brace in this match. Someone somewhere could have become a millionaire overnight. I don’t think Ivanovic getting a brace from corner headers is a coincidence. There must have been some plan around that. For both the goals, you could see Ivanovic consciously moving around knowing that he would be unmarked. I think that’s where Hiddink outthought Rafa tactically. Tactical plans are nice but they would have meant nothing if Ivanovic had not made that movement and smashed those headers. Full credit to the serbian.

For all his sins tonight, Drogba had to score. The third goal was a killer. I loved that one. It had Drogba written all over it. Low cross from the left and you see Drogba sneaking between two defenders in a flash and burying it. It was game over then. They knew that it was all over. They could not produce good chances to save their lives while we were creating at will. Liverpool just could not handle Chelsea tonight.

This was a great team performance. Every single player did his part. Particularly, Essien was brilliant. He muted Gerrard like you won’t see often. We castrated Gerrard and disconnected him and Torres making the Spaniard run around for nothing much. Was it really Malouda or some other player wearing a Malouda jersey? He was fantastic. His runs and play were intelligent and dangerous. His corner deliveries were more purposeful than that of Lampard’s. Kalou was wasteful but he at least kept Liverpool on their toes. Ballack was very good as well. I’m tired of praising Lampard. He had some dubious moments in defence, but in attack, he was top class. Many say that the only negative for Chelsea was Terry’s yellow that suspends him for next match. On second thought, his yellow at this stage was just ideal.

We bossed the midfield. More importantly, we played as a team. There was simply no confusion about the objective and tactics. As a team, I was incredibly pleased with the attitude, composure and maturity shown by this group. We knew how to create chances, we knew how to keep them at bay and we knew how to control the game. I don’t think Cech was really troubled apart from a couple of long shots. This must go down as one of the best away leg performances of Chelsea in recent times.

The tie is no way over yet only because we have 90 minutes to play. Liverpool needs a 3-0 result at Stamford Bridge. That’s a result I have not seen any team obtain in Stamford Bridge in my years of watching Chelsea. I don’t know when was it last achieved. Liverpool may draw inspiration from their 1-4 result at Old Trafford but that’s a different competition altogether. If Man Utd had started knowing that they only needed a draw, they’d have got it. Chelsea’s task is clear and easy. Any draw would do. A goal or two would put them out of sight.

Yesterday night was one of the best Chelsea nights I’ve experienced. Big compliments to Hiddink. He’s working wonders with this team. The very same team that was stamped as ‘old, tired and past their best’ has been now recognised as a champions league favourite and the only team that can stop Barcelona. The spirit and attitude of the Chelsea team is back. I love their confidence, flambuoyance bordering on arrogance.

Message to the Kop: OWNED!