Is this the worst game for us at Stamford Bridge considering the circumstances? Surely there was a build up to this defeat. The off-pitch problems and their effect on the pitch, the injuries, the continuous poor-team-selections, the insuficient bench, the ineffective subs and I can go on. Just 10 more matches to go. The lead is just 1 point. The morale is certainly down after the defeats against Inter and now Man City.

This is where Ancelotti comes in. This is where he earns his multi-million contract. To have Chelsea fight for the title is difficult task. Any manager can achieve that. In the next 10 matches, Ancelotti needs to prove what he is made of. I know you feel like ranting forever. Use this space. I’ll be back with my views after I’ve calmed down. Keep the faith!

We played poorly. There’s no two ways about it. We might have had the possession and the shots but still we were very lacklustre. We weren’t sharp at all. As a team we were always slower by about half a second. I don’t know why. Apart from a couple of efforts from Drogba, we did little to trouble the Inter defence and the goalie. With this kind of performance, I think a 2-1 result at the San Siro is a good result. At least you have an away goal.

Team selection was a headache as both Ashley Cole and Zhirkov were unavailable. Ferreira not having been registered for the champions league squad didn’t help. I would have played Belletti on the right back and Ivanovic as the left back. By having Malouda play as the left back, our left side of the defence was weaker and also we missed Malouda’s utility upfront. As far as I remember, Inter were always trying to play on our left side, in order to exploit Malouda’s defence. Though their goals came from the right side, they did spend a lot of their possession on our left side. Malouda, credit to him, did decently well in that position.

John Terry played a blinder the day after the news of his affair broke out. He even scored the winner at an away stadium. Ever since he was sacked as the England captain, his form has gone downhill. He was lacking in confidence. Big time. He was shaky and let that pass on to the other defenders and the goalkeeper. For the first goal, he made it easy for Milito. I don’t want to take anything away from Milito. It was a striker’s finish. It was a superb goal. But Terry made it easier for him to take the shot. Meanwhile, Ivanovic was very good. He was one of the few Chelsea players who would get anything past a 6/10 in my books.

We played our 4-3-2-1 with Anelka and Kalou playing behind Drogba. Anelka has been out of form ever since Drogba returned. Kalou is not dependable at the big stage. Even tonight, Anelka and Kalou not being up to the mark hurt us badly. You have an in-form Drogba who just begs for service while Anelka and Kalou just not living up to the expectations. It was the same story in the midfield too. You have a Mikel who was simply fantastic and you had a Lampard and Ballack who were substitute candidates by half time.

We must have certainly had a penalty closer to half time. Kalou was very clearly fouled and we were denied a 10/10 penalty. Kalou could have forced a save by then but anyway he did well enough to ‘almost’ earn a penalty. Our goal was silly one. Ivanovic made a great run but the shot from Kalou is nothing but a cutomary pop at the goalie, which adds one to the ‘shots on target’ column but bothers none. Cesar should have saved it rather easily but why would not welcome an away goal! Petr Cech limping away from the pitch was a bit worrisome. I really hope that he’d return for the weekend match.

I think Ancelotti took little too much to time to get his sub in. By the hour mark, you had so many players who deserved to be subbed – Anelka, Kalou, Lampard, Ballack – but still he brought in Sturrdige only with about 10 minutes to go. I wasnt sure what he was expecting. Any Chelsea fan watching the match must have been screaming for substitution, right from the half time. We had to somehow get the ball to Drogba. We just could not do that because that’s what Inter were very good at. They did allow us to connect to Drogba that easily. With Malouda playing in defence, if Inter could switch off Drogba, they have taken much of the goal threat from Chelsea. Inter did it just well enough. TSO’s experience and knowledge was pretty evident there.

The match is evenly poised. Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is stronger than Inter at San Siro. It’s perfectly possible for Chelsea to get a 1-0 or 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge. A lot will depend on Inter’s tactics. A lot will depend on what result TSO wants in the next leg. If he doesn’t want a win or a goal, we could have a tough night. It’s not so bad, this result. We’ve got a very important away goal and it’s not often we concede at home. So chill out and gear for the weekend match against Man City! If you’re looking for good news, Adebayor just got a straight red! As for me, I’m already elated. You know why? The darling of India, my hero, Sachin Tendulkar made history by scoring a double century in an ODI! It’s been a great day ruined only by my other hero, Jose Mourinho. Anyway, as they say with any two legged matches, it’s only half time and fortunately for us, we’d play the second half at home!

That’s a near perfect weekend. For once, I saw Man Utd slip in the race and Chelsea taking advantage of the same. I love the Man Utd result thoroughly. Look at the scene – Rooney in the form of his life, Man Utd are trailing the leaders by just one point, Everton have just beaten Chelsea, Everton are missing Cahill, Arteta and Fellaini and the match is at Goodison Park. It was a cracker of a match with a fantastic result from a Chelsea point of view. Man Utd were hit not just by the result, also by their shabby performance. Their performance so poor that it must raise doubts in the minds of fans, players and the manager on their title credentials this year. But they have a group of strong individuals so I’d never take them lightly. But certainly, this is an important day of this season. Just 11 matches to go and both Man Utd and Chelsea have some high-profile encounters still left in the run.

Chelsea’s performance was just enough for the 2-0 result. With the important champions league match up mid-week, I expected Chelsea to come up only with a performance good enough to get three points. That’s exactly what they did. The scoreline doesn’t tell you how many chances Wolves had and how close they were to lead or equalise. When Petr Cech produces a man of the match performance against Wolves, we certainly haven’t had our best performance as a team. Anyway, we’ve been playing too many matches in quick succession plus we’ve been going through some bad press plus we have to play Jose’ Inter in the mid-week. These are good enough reasons to produce a not-so-flashy performance.

Why talk about performance when you have only 11 games to go? All that matters is the result, from now on. Next weekend, we are playing Man City, And, Carlos Tevez could be back by that time. Yes, Man Utd lost to Everton but that means nothing much. I see this season’s title race going down the wire. I truly mean it. Our penultimate match of the season is at Anfield. That shows much each of these 11 matches are important. Next up is Inter. You know what, I think we would get past them rather easily. Not underestimating them. I can’t, because they have a top team and a top manager. But ‘something tells me’ that we’re cruising past them. Let’s hope so.

I know you’re wondering why the blog is not updated despite having two volunteers. Just found out that they are as slack as I am :-) To write an article is much more difficult than most of you think. Until you start writing yourself, it’s hard to realise why it must be such a big deal. While a comment can even be a random observation, an article has to be more wholesome, should be more complete and relevant. It does take time unless you’re terribly pissed off which can make you write an article even in 20 minutes.

Moreover, there could a million reasons for not updating the blog – might have had a hard day’s work, might have to take my wife and kid out, might have to go to my in-laws, might have to spend some personal time, the internet may not have been working, etc. A good question would be how did I manage to update the blog so regularly before and what has changed now? Well I was doing it at the cost of something – most importantly sleep, personal time, family time etc. You see the difference because I want to balance my time across a few things – of which the blog is one. So I fully understand if Karma or Tanmay is not able to post as frequently as they thought. Easy on them, easy on us. Let’s move on.

Let’s start with a quick coverage of the mid-week champions league games. Milan vs Man Utd was a lovely game of football. That was a match Milan must have closed within 30 minutes. Man Utd shouldn’t even have had a sniff of victory in that match. Sadly, a magical rebound from Scholes upset Milan as they conceded the dreaded away goal. Rooney continued his fine form but the ease with which he scored his brace must be a sad sight for any Milan fan. Milan still had it in them to draw or even win in the final 15 minutes but couldn’t finish when mattered.

East Timor, Tonga, Micronesia, Palau, Sao Tome and Prinicipe, Marshall Islands, Kiribati – what’s common among these countries? Their GDP of last year is lower than what Real Madrid spent on transfers last summer. If you see the backdrop of this season’s finals being in Santiago Bernabeu and Real Madrid’s desperation to win the champions league at home, their away defeat to Lyon is big news. Real Madrid have more ammunition that they need to turn things around but they’re under pressure and in these situations, a stroke of bad luck can knock you out. And that would be a tragedy for them!

I must say Arsenal are the most entertaining team in Europe. I mean, come on, tell me which other team ‘entertains’ you so much, makes you laugh so much and bring tears of joy in your eyes? Arsenal continued to play unintelligent football as they were beaten by Porto. Everytime, in knockout rounds, they get the easiest of draws and still make heavy weather of it. They could have got Inter, Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid and who did they get – Porto. As Fibreglass found out only this week, they were making schoolboy errors. I’ve been seeing them do this for seasons now.

What did we say about Tom Hennings Ovrebo? What did we say? We said he is either incompetent or corrupt or both. We proved it with photo and video evidence. What were we told? We were told not to find an excuse. The whole world saw that Chelsea were robbed of a place in the champions league finals. Hardly any sympathy for us because it was Barcelona who made it to the finals at our expense. We only got further punished with bans and suspensions. To say it in the style of Godfather’s classic opening scene – “Tom Hennings Ovrebo walked free . . that . . very . . day”. UEFA drafted him back in, in the same tournament where he screwed up, again in a knock out round and unsurprisingly he’s done that again. It’s impossible to get that decision wrong. Granted he wasn’t helped by the assistant referees but if he can’t this offside from where he was, the only excuse he could give is that he is blind.

Now, Fiorentina is not the same as Milan, Inter or Juventus. But what does the Italian FA do? They question UEFA. They challenge them. They put pressure on UEFA. They object and also make their objection loud and clear about standards of UEFA referees. They stand up for a club of their association. It is the president of the Italian FA that’s questioning the refereeing standards in UEFA champions league. When Chelsea were robbed last season, what did English FA do? Nothing. While Italian FA can stand up for Fiorentina, can’t the English FA do the same for Chelsea FC? Would they have done it if it was Liverpool or Man Utd? Sacking captains for sleeping around is all right but I hope they also learn how to protect the clubs that are members of its association.

Staying with the topic of sleeping around, Ancelotti and Ron Gourlay, the chief executive of Chelsea FC, have addressed the players about the importance of protecting the image of the club. In simple terms, they must have said ‘behave yourself’. A timely intervention I’d say. Sometimes, even the obvious will have to be spoken about. Not sure if JT was part of the meeting. Anyways, JT is back for this match after a short leave to fix up things at home. We would not have Lampard, Alex, Deco and Belletti for this match. Same’s the case with medium-timers Bosingwa, Essien and Ashley Cole. That means Terry and Carvalho as centre backs, Ivanovic as the right back and Zhirkov as the left back. Mikel would play probably alongside Ballack, Joe Cole and Matic (well, this part is just wishful thinking).

Anelka has been off colour since Drogba returned. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or there is some science behind. Anelka has been really poor to be honest but he’s trying really hard which is why I’d not go harsh on him. But on current form, if Carletto picks Sturridge instead of Anelka, I’d not be worried at all. Drogba is in top form and I’m rooting for him to beat Rooney for the golden boot.

Wolves away is by no means an easy game but that’s a game we must win. When you look at the fixtures for this weekend, you see Everton vs Man Utd, Arsenal vs Sunderland and Man City vs Liverpool. This could turn out to be a dream weekend for us with Everton, Sunderland and Liverpool winning (see how times have changed! In Rafa we trust!). Here’s hoping for a 2-0 win for Chelsea, and heavy defeats, destruction, relegation and bankruptcy for our rivals.

You saw it coming, didn’t you? A night of premier league fixtures involving Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal could have been lot different and better. What we saw a horrible night of football, with us losing while Man Utd gaining a point and Liverpool letting Arsenal win. I couldn’t watch the Chelsea match as it was not telecast live. I did see the goals though.

Until yesterday I thought that the 3-3 draw at Stamford Bridge against Everton was our worst performance of the season (worse than the 3-1 defeat to Wigan). This defeat could just surpass that especially considering the time at which this has come. While I cannot make a comment about how we played I can tell you this much that John Terry was at fault for both goals. The first one, he allowed Saha to get forward and place a powerful header. The second one was terrible. At the edge of the box, Terry mistimed a jump while Saha collected the ball and punished us. He is always a thorn, Louis Saha. He is such a quality striker when he is on his feet. I remember this goal that he scored against us at Old Trafford. That was a gem. He’s come back to help his ex-club.

So where does this leave us? We’re just one point clear of Man Utd and 6 points clear of Arsenal. Basically the luxury of points is gone and so is the game-on-hand. So from now on the result of every match counts. There is no lead in points that we can afford to drop. This league has been very unpredictable and the trend continues. Fergie must be thinking that he missed a great opportunity but well Carletto must be thinking the same.

It could have been lot better but we are where we are. One thing’s for sure. Leading the table doesn’t matter any more. The teams are so close that positions of the table can keep changing in the next 12 matches. Let’s hope that we go on winning run. That’s all I can say at this moment.