That’s what I thought. Like how the near golden boot winner ‘Own goal’ helped Man Utd all along last season, this ‘Bad Moment’ has been chasing us to drive us out of the season. The first half was nothing much to brag about, in a way it was a bit like the second half. Everton had most of the ball, they looked to sharper and quicker. We were being our recent selves – pondering and pondering.

Anelka got couple of chances where he had clear sight of the goal only to realise he had better sight of Tim Howard. On the other end, we were shaky at the back. This was another display by Ivanovic to show why he is not a natural centre back. Lovely player but has a long way to go before becoming an established centre back.

Second best, once again!

I don’t want to be proved right about Essien. He was bad. Let’s admit it. In this match, he wasn’t even playing in an offensive role. He was in defensive midfield playing a classic holding role. He was only meant to break up attacks, provide cover at the back and make simple distributions. For a player like Essien, this must have pretty natural and easy. He did a decent job but not what you’d expect of Essien. He ended up creating attacks, for Everton. He can be many things but disaster is not one. He had my heart in my mouth a few times. Very unEssien.

Ramires is best improved player this season for us. If he continues like this for a couple more months, he is my Chelsea player of the season. I’m just loving his runs through the centre. In premier league, it’s not often possible to make his kind of runs right through the centre of the pitch. He does it quite easily. And that 86th minute screamer was stunning!! He’s developing to be a fine player and he could probably be our best post-Mourinho signing.

Having Ramires and Lampard in the centre midfield should give us a lot variety in our how we build our attacks. We saw some Ramires-inspired moves and some delightful balls from Lampard which only tells me that all we need to do is to use these fine gentlemen in building our attacks. As we play 4-3-3 with a holding midfielder, most of our attacks happen through the flanks and this reduces the possible involvement of Ramires and Lampard. With ‘Rampard’ (there you go, another word coined), we’re well within our strengths to play 4-4-2 diamond kind of formation so we can get the best from them.

Our attacks down the wings are totally predictable. We don’t have magicians on either wings to spring surprises. Watch us play down the wings – we do the same things over and over. If Everton had watches the recording of our last few matches, they know too well what to do and especially where to do. Malouda not being at his best has had an impact on Ashley Cole as well. They work in tandem and if the winger isn’t doing well, the wing back won’t be able to do any better. Our right side is perennially under-strength. Bosingwa and Anelka – I don’t even know if they understand each other well – leave alone a chemistry. They just don’t make a pair. More often that not, Bosingwa is left alone with no support. While our left side is adequate but currently effective, the right side is terribly inadequate. Hence I think that we should look to attack through the middle to get the best out of ‘Rampard’ and also avoid the ineffective wing attacks.

Hot to handle!

Louis Saha is one striker that I fear. He is an extremely talented player whose career was ruined by injuries. If not for the injuries, he’d have become a great premier league player. In the Mourinho days, we had the best defensive set ups in England, if not in Europe. It was never easy to beat us. Scoring against was a realy prize and a moment of pride for anyone. At Old Trafford, Saha scored this beauty against us that left Carvalho, Terry and Cech wondering what hit them. It required something very special to score a goal like that against the Chelsea of 05-06 and he was! He has always troubled Chelsea and yesterday was no different. John Terry just couldn’t contain him in a dead ball situation. He scored and Mr. Bad Moment was lurking around the corner.

We didn’t go after them with power, force, revenge and aggression. We continued to do what we were doing since the kick off. Luckily for us, Everton didn’t sit back to defend their lead. They wanted to build on their lead. We got the ball moving in a counterattack and Kalou surprised all, including probably himself, with a beautiful finish that even the best striker in the world would be proud of. He was being blocked by three defenders, there was some distance, he was in an angle, had the goalkeeper make his full stretch and still managed to score with a sweet shot. Delightful!

This was an evenly contested match but Everton was slightly better and were more likely to win the match. A score draw is something I’d take happily given that we could’ve gone out of the cup. The way we played made Everton think that they could win this match – all 90 minutes. They were not afraid of Chelsea at all. They weren’t worried about the damage that we could inflict on them. They played like they were equals. We gave them the belief. But I’m happy that we’re still in the cup. We might have congested our February which was already very busy. Anyway, at least, we showed the door to Mr. Bad Moment but I think he’s just waiting outside the door.

So, no more David Luiz. Well then, we know how to move on, don’t we? In comes Fernando Torres. Lovely drama as Liverpool rejecting our bid and news trickling out that Torres has handed a transfer request to leave in this very window that ends tomorrow. Nice one Fernando! The talks are still on. The valuation is mind boggling. I wouldn’t pay anything more than 30m pounds for him considering how injury prone he is, at such young age. And I don’t want to part with any Chelsea player in this deal, ok Paulo Ferreira may be. We’re playing Liverpool next weekend; will he be ours by then? And yes, if we have learnt anything from Chelsea FC, don’t place too many hopes on signing Torres tomorrow.

We’re playing Sunderland away on Tuesday night. I guess we owe them something. Let’s make it a night to remember. Cheers and have a nice weekend!