I’m very pleased that this is a great birthday present for WXWAX and Josh McE, in that order. Enjoy the night folks! Chelsea FC chose your birthday to show up and play some proper football!

Remember this phrase: “So which Chelsea’s gonna show up today?”. We have this uber-confident Chelsea and a fear-ridden Chelsea. The earlier one believed in its ability and plays with swift movement and quick interchange of passes. The latter one plays with fear of losing that overcomes the desire for winning and ends up being easy to deal with. I think it’s fair to say that we saw a bit of both tonight.

When we started the game, we were all over Man Utd. We looked more determined and more keen to score. We were also helped by the fact that Man Utd weren’t closing us down. They weren’t pressuring us. They let us have the ball. They let us play. In about 20 mins time, we saw Man Utd settling down and negotiating whatever we could produce. And a fantastic goal from Rooney meant that they were firmly in the driving seat. As the first half drew to a close, Man Utd were right on the money. They fully deserved their lead.

Man Utd definitely played to a certain plan and it was working for them very well. We had to score in the second half and that’s got to be from our best player of the night. I have a lot of faith and belief on David Luiz not only because he is a talente player but also because he’s uninfected by our poor form. I might say the same about Torres but he’s coming from Liverpool who were in good premier league form when Carlo was playing football. David Luiz is already a crowd favourite and with this supergoal against Man Utd, he’s surely gone a few notches ahead.

While we were expecting our new signing to score the debut Chelsea goal, it did happen. Few would have thought that this would be David Luiz. Torres had his chances but he is yet to open his account. But I thought Torres played well. His movement and involvement was quite impressive.

David Luiz was probably the sharpest player on the pitch, always thinking a few seconds ahead of the other players. He was quick to realise threats and he was also quick to turn defence into attack. He does need to work on his temper and composure though. He should be advised not to commit silly fouls or unnecessary altercations. I think he should have been sent off for his foul on Rooney. He was already on yellow and this one too was a yellow card offence. Fergie’s post match comments is all about officials and David Luiz’ potential red card.

Fergie is either very cheeky or downright hypocrite to be even talking about it this week. Fergie should also consider himself very lucky to have Wayne Rooney playing today. He should not have been playing league football this week given his violent assault on James McCarthy. Actually, he should be in jail. As long as they keep getting such favours from the referees and FA, they are the favourites for the title.

At 1-1, the uber-confident Chelsea resurfaced again. We started pushing Man Utd on the backfoot. We started moving more confidently and intelligently. We stopped fearing ‘what if’. We were on the assault. That move that led to the penalty is a classic example of what I’ve been asking us to do. In that attacking move involving Drogba, Lampard and Zhirkov, we definitely confused the Man Utd defence and that’s what caused them some panic and ended up conceding a penalty. More of that please. Lampard had to finish it and he did it very well to mark his only useful contribution of the match.

If anyone thought that it’s not a penalty, I have a response – watch the replay. It wasn’t a stonewall penalty allright. Smalling wasn’t just standing firm in Yuri’s way. Watch Smalling’s foot move quickly to stop Yuri storming in. Once Yuri goes to the ground, Smalling stood like a statue to pretend that he was just holding his ground. Very clever. Check how swiftly his foot moved to stop Zhirkov. It’s a penalty.

Leading 2-1, with about 10 minutes to go plus the Fergie time, I thought Chelsea finished the game well. We ensured that we don’t do anything silly. The fact that we had more days to rest than Man Utd, also showed up, epecially towards the last 15 mins of the game. At the end, it’s fair to say that this was a very well deserved win for Chelsea. This is a fantastic result!

Was this a brilliant performance? Not quite but I don’t care, for today. Our midfield was poor and it was either erroneous or non-existent. Man Utd showed us too much respect and paid the price. They always make this mistake. They get a bit too conservative when they play Chelsea and that doesn’t suit their style. Our strikers didn’t get enough service. They didn’t do much apart from what they did in the initial 10-15 mins. With our midfield being so poor and our strikers not getting the service, to beat Man Utd is not simple thing. Hence, the value of this result is immense.

Credit to Carlo for not playing Drogba and starting Torres and Anelka. I was very pleased with how we started the game. We showed the right message to Man Utd. The intent from our side was clear. We wanted to win. I’d give it to Carlo for how well prepared and keen his players were. We had our highs and lows within these 90 minutes but we won fair and square.

We’ve cracked the title race wide open. For me, the only sad thing about today’s result is that Arsenal stands to gain because of our win. Anyway, just heard that van Persie is out of 3 weeks. Fabregas and Walcott are also not there. Man Utd play Liverpool this weekend. They wouldn’t have Vidic, Ferdinand or Evans. Man Utd still need to play Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton. They could lose 2-3 matches. Arsenal could lose all the remaining matches. We could possibly win all our matches. Ah! This drug called ‘hope’ . . .