The best result of the opening night of this season’s champions league goes to . . . Chelsea FC! We got the win we wanted. With Valencia drawing with Genk, it sounds even better. Didn’t get to see the match because TenSports in India chose to show the Dortmund match. I did get a good stream but not good enough for me to write match reactions based on that. But still let me give it a shot.

Torres: The man’s taken more flak than an unsuccessful England manager. I feel very sorry for him. He is such a great striker and a proven success in the premier league but still gets questioned on his ability. Sad. I still believe that our team has to take a lot of blame for his lack of goals. Tonight, he didn’t score any goals though he could have got a hattrick with a little bit of confidence or luck. But he did make the assists for both the goals. Especially for the second goal, he could have had a shot on goal but very unselfishly, he passed to Mata who scored. If Malouda were in Torres’ position and if Torres were in Mata’s position, 10 out 10 times, Malouda would have shot. But Torres, despite his goal drought and public criticism, passed it to Mata. Hats off man!

Mata: Telling contribution in every single match he has played so far. He’s such a joy to watch. He and Torres connected very well. He was able to find Torres or involve Torres more than the whole Chelsea team could do over the last few months.

Bosingwa v2: It’s official. AVB has truly transformed Bosingwa. There’s something about him now. He’s more useful, more clever and surely more productive than before. Long may his form continue.

Malouda v2?: I thought Malouda’s performance tonight was very different from his usual ones. He seemed to play more of a team man than before. He was looking for options, helping his team mates, getting more involved in team plays and all that. He even found Torres on a few occasions. Not sure if this was because he was playing in the left midfield and not as a forward player. Or probably, AVB is weaving his magic on Malouda? I hope he is, because I like this version of Malouda the most.

Mikel: Did his job to perfection. Broke up attacks, made tackles, held the ball well and most importantly didn’t contend to just sideway passes of 2 metres. He was moving very well in the middle third without being hyper-conscious about having to come back to his position. He might have more to offer. Will he realise his potential under AVB?

That dribble from David Luiz: Take a bow, son! This is why you need Brazilian defenders in your team. His dribble, 1-2s and the finish would make some top forwards in the business very proud.

Tempo: Another high tempo performance by Chelsea. We were playing in really high tempo – on and off the ball. We played with such urgency that you might think that we were chasing the game with 5 mins on the clock. I like this approach. It was almost like taking offence to Torres’ (misquoted?) interview. The painful ‘slowness’ in our game is slowly going away and that can only be a good thing. And our passing and movement were really really good.

Bayer Leverkusen: They gave us a good game. They made the game very open and entertaining. They were in it until the last moments but they lacked quality to take advantage of some opportunities. Good luck to them with the group stage matches.

Michael Ballack: Wow! What a sight to see the German captain back at Stamford Bridge. He would always remain as one of my favourite footballers. I thought he was superb at Chelsea. He was a great team man, playing in different roles and positions, and even playing second fiddle despite being one of the biggest superstars in world football, much bigger than almost all of his Chelsea colleagues. My lasting image of Ballack would be his hounding of Ovrebo. When I saw him tonight at the Bridge, I couldn’t forget that robbery of a match.

Tonight he got a very good reception at the Bridge also a standing ovation as he was subbed off. We even showed our respect to the big man by scoring our goal after he got subbed. Before the match, Chelsea FC also presented him with a commemorative gift. Good luck to Ballack and I’d support Bayer Leverkusen to reach the next round, just for him.

Defence: Our indecision in defence continues. They have not proved costly yet. Such indecisive defending against Man Utd would just punish us. Something has changed in our defence. It simply is not rock solid anymore. Personally, my confidence level in our defence has come down.

Doubts about team selection: AVB rested Terry, Lampard and Anelka. He played Torres for all 90 minutes. Makes me wonder if Anelka would start over Torres against Man Utd this Sunday. If that’s the idea, it is bad. We need to play Man Utd with the same tempo as we played tonight. But I get a feeing that we might go for a slower set up.

TenSports: The channel that telecasts champions league football in India didn’t show the Chelsea game live. Out of the teams that played tonight, there were two champions league favourites – Barca and Chelsea. The Barca game was showed and the Chelsea game was not. Very sad and very wrong.

It’s good sign if you’re not able to choose the man of the match because there are too many candidates – I could pick any one of these players – Malouda, Torres, Mata, Luiz or Sturridge. I think I might go with David Luiz. At the 67th minute, the game was very open. For David Luiz to make that run and exchange passes and finish with style to open the lead was something special and was the turning point of the match. He took charge of the situation and got us the lead. He would be a deserving man of the match tonight.

Very good result. Happy to start off with a win and end the night with the best result of matchday one in this season’s champions league. No fresh injuries, decent pitch time for the new signings and four full days between tonight and the Old Trafford game. I think we’re settling down very nicely. When we really peak, we’re gonna be very dangerous.

For now, let’s enjoy this win. Later during the week, we start talking about the Old Trafford match. And probably, also talk about the demos of PES 2012 and FIFA 12. All right then, See you later!

Half time, as they say. It’s just that the second half would be played in Old Trafford. It’s just that we are trailing 0-1. It’s not a common occurrence in champions league knockout round for a team to lose the first leg at home and win the tie at the away second leg. Odds are certainly in favour of Man Utd. But then, this is a competition that allows for some magic, sometimes even a miracle. Luckily for us, we don’t need a miracle. Just a little bit of magic would do.

When the champions league draw was made, I had mentioned that Fergie would be more worried than Carlo. I stuck by this until last week. We had the momentum. They had the injuries. It looked like we’re gonna finish this season with a strong performance like we did last season and also under Hiddink. What changed the mood was the weekend premier league matches. Man Utd comes back from a 0-2 deficit to score 4 in the second half. Chelsea slips up with a draw and let’s Man Utd take a bigger lead. Man Utd grew stronger in confidence while our shoulders dropped. Four days later, Chelsea and Man Utd play each other, coming from two contrasting results from the premier league.

The first leg at Stamford Bridge today was a very well fought game. There weren’t many goals but it was a good contest. The home team didn’t play like one but the away team did play to their plan. Still, it was a good contest of football.

Let’s get this out of the way. Man Utd were the better team tonight. They deserved to win. We should have won the penalty but at the end of the day, a 1-0 defeat tonight was not totally unjust. Chelsea were mostly predictable in their attacks and Man Utd defended very well. It even looked like we were playing to their plan.

Very very good goal . . .

Man Utd were fraction quicker, sharper and more disciplined in their attack. More importantly, their attacks did have a surprise element that could get catch us off guard – the goal being a prime example. The goal was created from nowhere. It all happened in a flash. Lovely ball from Fletcher and a great run and pass by Giggs and a perfect finish by Rooney. You can say that Bosingwa could have done better on Giggs. I was wondering how Rooney was left all alone inside the box with no one putting any sort of pressure on him. We were caught by a surprise attack and we were behind.

We could never surprise Man Utd as such. Our attacks were predictable and in our approach, it was only with our superior execution or a mistake from Man Utd that could have given us a goal. There were hardly any instances of our superior execution neither were there any Man Utd mistakes in their box.

Essien - Disappointing. Once Again.

I don’t think Carlo has decided on his best formation and who would be his first choice players in that formation. He has been switching between 4-3-3 and 4-4-2. He has used our strikers in various combinations. He hasn’t yet settled on a particular post-Torres formation and line-up. To play 4-4-2 today with Drogba and Torres cried of defensive mindset. We knew Man Utd would come with their usual 4-5-1 and crowd the midfield. Probably Carlo wanted to win the midfield battle and keep possession. He could have gone for the 4-3-3 and played only one of the strikers. He chose to play both and expected width from our full backs.

The one reason why our 4-4-2 may just not work is that our only hope for width is from our full backs. With the current form our full backs are in, we are doing ourselves any favour with full backs that are never too confident, unable to get back to positions and poor in crossing. At least in a 4-3-3, they might only play a support role or play in tandem with the wide men. Until our full backs get to cross decently, I’d not play 4-4-2.

It’s not all about formation and line-up. There was something else too. See, this is a champions league quarterfinal. You have almost no hope for retain the premier league title. Champions league is all that should matter for you. You have a fully fit near full squad to choose your line up from. You have Roman Abramovich watching. You have your home crowd cheering you. No matter how underplay it, you know you gotta give one back to Man Utd for what happened in Moscow. There were dozens of motivators.

Still, Chelsea were second best. Chelsea were a bit lethargic or ‘boring’ if I may so. Some of the players played like this was the dead rubber in the champions league group stage. The urgency just wasn’t there. Unfortunately for us, Man Utd showed that urgency. Whenever they got the ball, they made sure they gave us a scare. On the contrary, when we got the ball, we were going through the motions with our attacking routines.

Didn't do much to change the course of the match . . .

Even Carlo didn’t respond quick enough. The first half didn’t show much promise despite the stoppage time goal line clearance. The Chelsea performance in the first half and the way Man Utd settled down in the match did warrant a half time change – just one sub, just to stir things up. At least, a change between 55-60 min would have been decent. Carlo ended up making two subs at 70 mins and one at 78 mins. In that, he removed Didier Drogba, our best player on the pitch and brought on Malouda, our worst player in recent times. He kept Essien on the pitch for all 90 mins despite his poor show and brought on Mikel.

When we are chasing a goal, I would brought in Yossi Benayoun or Salomon Kalou and certainly not Obi Mikel. And I don’t quite buy the argument that Mikel was brought in to release Essien further up. One, Mikel came in for Bosingwa the right back. As soon as Mikel came in, it was Essien who managed right back area, while Mikel occupied the space that Essien was until then. Mikel’s coming in meant that Carlo was not really looking for an equaliser. It’s not like going for an equaliser would have meant Man Utd scoring another one. Man Utd were happy to sit back and we couldn’t open them up. A Benayoun or a Kalou would have been just ideal there.

I got a feeling that we didn’t do our homework well. We turned up just like we always do and played the same stuff. Get the ball – slow the game down – keep moving the ball in the final third – move it to the flanks – poor cross – blocked by opposition. Rinse and repeat. The only players that could have done something to surprise Man Utd and induced a mistake were Benayoun, Kalou, Zhirkov and Drogba. Two of them didn’t get to play and two of them were subbed off.

As long as we are predictable like this, we will be beaten tactically. The problem about being beaten tactically is that we don’t even realise that we were second best. We pick up stats like possessions, shots, corners and stuff. Tactically beaten means exactly that. You get the ball, you get the shots, you get all but you don’t get the goal. You’re tactically outplayed.

Beat Man Utd at Old Trafford?

Bear in mind, it’s not just the away goal that we have conceded. We have conceded an away win to Man Utd. All they need is a draw at Old Trafford. As far as we are concerned, we need a win at Old Trafford, most preferably with a couple of goals. For us, both 2-0 and 2-1 will see us through. Can Chelsea beat Man Utd 2-1 at Old Trafford? Absolutely possible. This weekend is very crucial. Would Carlo rest players against Wigan? Would he prefer to play a more fresh bunch of players next week, something that Man Utd cannot afford to do?

My advice is just this. Play 4-3-3. Drogba on the right. Zhirkov on the left. Torres in the centre. Benayoun in left midfield, Lampard in the centre midfield, Ramires in the right midfield. No defensive midfielder. Terry and Ivanovic in the central defence. Paulo Ferreira (wish van Aanholt is around) as the right back. Ashley Cole as the left back. Play like men. We are better than Man Utd man to man. Champions league is all that we want. Go on the offensive. Hit them before they know what hit them. Scoring 2 goals in Old Trafford is certainly possible!

Are we out of the title race, again? For the goodness of our season, I think we might have to concede that and target champions league with full attention and focus. Don’t know when was the last time we were out of the running for the title in early April. But, we gotta accept the reality. Champions league is all that we’ve got.

Couple of weeks back, I did say that our name is on the cup. The feeling has only got stronger after watching the first leg matches last night. If we are playing Schalke in the semi final, we should consider ourselves lucky. We can surely beat them in a champions league semi final. Real Madrid, despite their lofty scoreline, didn’t look very compact. Against good attacks and top quality players, their defence is surely gonna struggle. If we were to play Real Madrid, I wouldn’t be too concerned.

Shakhtar can spring a surprise. If they can get a draw at Camp Nou tonight, anything can happen at Ukraine. No matter who we want to meet in the semi finals or the finals, we have this little thing called a champions league quarterfinal against Man Utd.

Playing the second leg at Old Trafford could be an advantage for Man Utd but if you’re keen to win the champions league, this shouldn’t even be playing in your mind. Porto, when they became European champions, beat Man Utd at Old Trafford in the second leg. On the other hand, talking of advantages, we have the most decisive advantage over Man Utd – our squad.

While we are one of the least affected by the injuries, Man Utd are the most affected. Chelsea have a near-full squad that can focus just on the champions league and Man Utd have an injury-depleted squad that also needs to finish the business in the premier league. I’m sure this will be the decisive advantage in this tie. We have a bigger and fitter squad. Our bench is much stronger than that of Man Utd. Carlo needs to fully leverage on our bigger and fitter squad.

Like with the ‘big matches’, what will also be a decisive factor is ‘who wants to win this more’. Man Utd, despite winning so much and so often, do manage to keep their hunger and desire for more. Full credit to Sir Alex for always keeping his players on their toes and making them want more and more.

I really hope that we give our best. I hope as I’m not sure. One of the things that went missing from us since our double winning last season was the ‘killer instinct’. We tend to drop our shoulders. We tend to concede the matches without enough fight. We tend not to play until the final whistle. This must change in this tie.

As I’ve always said, winning or losing is about a lot of details, as manager would tell you. You can play better and lose or you can play worse and win. What is in our control, with a fully fit large squad, is to give our bloody best shot. We need to play like these are our last two matches of the season because it could very well be, if we don’t give our best.

This is all that matters. Let’s play like our lives depend on this.

A comfortable win, finally. I haven’t had this feeling in a long while. Not even in the 4-2 win against Sunderland. This match against Copenhagen was under our control from the first minute. FCK did try their best they couldn’t match up to the experienced opponents.

We started with a 4-4-2, with Torres and Anelka upfront. I said this in BC Shout before the kick off too – I was pleased that Drogba was dropped and Carlo chose Anelka and Torres. That’s the right thing to do. Now, he only needs to extend this to every single position in the team.

This was a much better performance from Torres. He couldn’t find the net despite getting some really good chances. But what I was impressed was how well he played with his new team mates. Lampard was able to find Torres very often . The chemistry between Torres and Anelka was decent, much better than the one between Torres and Drogba. Probably, that was also because Torres is improving.

For me, the biggest pluses from the match were these: (a) Drogba didn’t start and we still won 2-0 (b) Torres’ performance was very promising. It’s only a matter of time before he starts scoring (c) Lampard was very much in the game, created quite a few opportunities including the smart assist for the game winner (d) the tie is over unless we are first grade masochists.

Good performance all around. It’s easy to say, this was only FC Copenhagen and that helped us. While there’s truth in it, let’s not be in some illusion that we were struggling only against the top teams. We have been struggling against ALL teams in the premier leauge – from No.1 to No.20. Therefore, a good result or an impressive performance against Copenhagen is not a small thing.

I’m wiser now though. I’m not going to say ‘we’ve turned the corner’ or ‘we’re back’ or some optimistic slogans. We’ve said this a few times this season and we’ve been proved wrong. But I will only have to wait for a week. Next Tuesday, we play Man Utd. Unlike before, this game is not crucial for our title run anymore. But it’s very important for us to gather these points and get to third place and gain an automatic champions league spot, or in a worst case scenario, get the fourth place.

The key is if Chelsea can continue this momentum. Can Carlo motivate Chelsea enough for the Man Utd game? How much confidence will Chelsea have when they face Man Utd? If Fergie wants a draw, would we force a win or complain about the opponents’ tactics like losers? We will wait to see.

We are still alive. I had this thought before the game and I maintain it. Now I want to see my players do this again, again, again.

Thanks Carlo. The thing is, YOU hold the key!

The manager, the captain, the team, the fans – we are all in the same page. We must win the champions league. Well, if we are winning something this season, it’s only gotta be the ‘big ears’, because we are no longer in any other tournament.

If you’re a regular reader, you’d know that I prefer to draw the biggies in earlier stages rather than later for two reasons. One is, you can eliminate a key rival for the title who you anyway might have to play at some stage; two is, the confidence that it gives you to move ahead to win the trophy is immense. This time around, I didn’t want us to draw the biggies. When the draw was made, we were right in the middle of the disastrous form this season. I was hugely relieved that we’re playing FC Copenhagen. That’s no disrespect to FC Copenhagen but certainly they are no match to Chelsea, on paper.

In the new landscape here at Chelsea FC, you can’t take anyone lightly. Certainly not FC Copenhagen. I don’t what the odds are, they could be close to even. If I were a punter, I’d surely put some money on FC Copenhagen to upset Chelsea. We know that it’s not so much of an upset as we seem to fearing this game while they are all set to rock our already wrecked boat.

We have a near-full squad to choose from – as it’s been in the recent couple of months. We also have Fernando Torres available. True to his style, Carlo has already announced that Fernando would start. Torres should find playing away at Copenhagen lot better than playing in England. Playing in Copenhagen would be less pressure, for him, at this stage. As far as team selection goes, we know who gets picked and who’d play. So apart from the news that Torres would play, there’s nothing much I want to add.

Make no mistake, the opponents are waiting for us. They’re longing to play this game and knock us off. Solbakker, the FC copenhagen coach says this:

Since 10 January, we have been preparing for this game and this game only. Maybe we haven’t had the opposition we’ve needed to be at our best level, but the players are in good shape and confident. Some of my players are so daft that they think they’re a better side than Chelsea. Maybe I should be talking them down a bit. Some have only lost one or two games playing in this side, so they think it’s easy. Confidence is very high in the team.

FC Copenhagen players thinking that they’re a better side than Chelsea? How the mighty have fallen!

Carlo on the other hand, takes solace from his trackrecord and believes that his history would repeat.

A lot of times, I’ve been able to manage this moment. I want to remind you in 2007 it was the same situation and the Italian journalists know this. The Champions League is the most important competition. We’re involved this season more compared with the other competitions. To be under pressure, this means to be focused and try to do our best in this competition, to try to win.

He also said, in a very firm manner:

Chelsea won’t go out against Copenhagen.

I’ve trusted him so long, I’ll give him one last chance.

Second best . . . after Kenny Dalglish!

It was Fernando Torres who said romance in football is gone. Ask Liverpool fans today. Victory would never have tasted sweeter than today for the Kop. Fairplay to them. They deserved to win – not because they played better – only because they were less erroneous and stronger tactically. Not mincing words here, they got the win they deserved. What about Chelsea then? That’s the point of this whole article mate.

For me, there were two surprises in the line-up. One – Torres was really starting. Two – No Ramires even on the bench. I was surprised by Torres starting because I thought Carlo would be a bit more conservative and subtle about Torres’ introduction at Chelsea. Secondly, I was hugely disappointed to know that Ramires wasn’t in the line up only to find that he wasn’t even on the bench. There was no news about what happened to him either. The official website completely missd out on reporting what happened with him.

We started with a certain version of 4-4-2 diamond with Anelka in the hole. Liverpool played in a 3-5-1-1 which is more like a 8-1-1 when they’re off the ball. The intent was clear. Liverpool wanted just a point. They came with limited aspirations. Their plan was to frustrate Chelsea and hit them on the break. They did it very well. Actually we made it a bit easy for them to defend.

Anelka was this time officially in the attacking midfield role which he anyway takes up most matches. This time around he had two world class strikers waiting for service. It’s pity that Anelka hardly connected with Drogba or Torres. With so many Liverpool defenders crowding at the back, it was always going to be difficult to find Drogba or Torres in space but kind of gave up and never properly tried. We played with this old formula of stretching their defence with the wide players and thereby creating space in the middle for the strikers. This wasn’t happening as Liverpool had stationed three centre backs and was letting the five-man midfield deal with Chelsea’s wide play.

With no creativity in our midfield and in our attacking play, we were never going to beat an eight-man wall. We had to quickly do something after the initial 10-15 minutes as soon as the direction of the match was evident. We didn’t do much. We kept on pondering, creating hardly anything. There was no excuse for us not to play better in the second half – surprise, surprise – we did the exact same things, only in a slightly better tempo.

I’d say the Liverpool defence and midfield weren’t tested. They never got to their top gear. The central defence had to make only one block – Carragher on Torres. I hardly saw Pepe Reina. Did he even have to make a save? Yes, we should have got penalties – two of them. But I wouldn’t say we would have deserved our win then. The result is not in our control, our effort is. Fans go by the efforts. The owners could go by the results. I’m certainly not the owner and I saw no efforts.

With Man Utd and Arsenal slipping, with the new signings coming in, you don’t need to motivate this team for this match. We should have come out all guns blazing. We should have pressed them all over the pitch. We should have passed and moved like champions playing at home. We did none of that. We were slow. We paid too much respect for a Liverpool team that was severely lacking in quality and would have happily taken a draw.

Yes, they did communicate!

We had culprits all over the pitch. Cech was at fault for the goal. Period. That’s his area where there was a confusion and a resultant goal. Few minutes earlier, Cech and Ivanovic had a miscommunication and blew it off on each other. For this cross from Gerrard, Cech was unsure of what to do. He should have either gone totall committed into punching the ball or should have let the centre backs deal with it and stayed on the line. He did neither. He went for the ball half heartedly and Meireles knocked in the loose ball from the confusion.

I need to talk about the build up of the goal too. I think it was Carragher who rounded Ashley Cole to pass to Gerrard on the right wing. I was wondering what Ashley was doing so up on the pitch leaving Gerrard in the space behind him. It wasn’t even a counterattack. Lampard tried to block but couldn’t get a touch on the ball. Playing with a single striker against strong Chelsea centre backs, they might have known that the goal needs to come from the wings. All they had to do was to attack Bosingwa and Ashley Cole. Our left back made it a bit too easy for them.

Our defenders played well individually but as a unit they didn’t. The goal that we conceded was a joke. No way in hell that should have been allowed. That was an opportunistic ball from Gerrard aimed at no one but misunderstanding between our centre backs and the keeper meant a free grab from Meireles. Luiz was very impressive. He is young, fit and was up for the fight. Next match, he should pair with Terry while Ivanovic moves to right back.

Our midfield was poor – Lampard, Essien, Mikel – all of them. Lampard was not involved in the match. He wasn’t really wanting the ball. Essien was very error prone – poor passes and heavy touches. Mikel – picked up a yellow under 1 minute and lost the ball 4 times in the first 10 minutes. There was no creativity from the midfield. At times, Anelka was also moving back and forth creating some congestion in the middle.

Our midfield may not have produced chances but they weren’t even able to find our strikers. We went back to our boring and unyielding style of stereotypical wing play. They knew our every move before we could make it. Our midfield failed.

Deadly double - Disconnected from the midfield

Torres did fine. I didn’t expect him to come and score on his debut against Liverpool. Sheva scored on his debut and that was against Liverpool too. Scoring on debut is just for some media drama. I’m only concerned about his contribution in a season rather than this little dramatics like scoring against the old club or scoring on debut. I was hoping that he stays for all 90 minutes but he came off for Kalou.

Drogba was pathetic. He’s been like that for weeks and months now. He’s off his pace. His focus and concentration are poor and that shows in attacking play. He is not giving his best. What’s now left is only his physciality which is helpful sometimes in defence. May be it’s time for him to get the axe. Truly, his contribution to the team has been dwindling. Even today, I felt as if we were playing with 10 men. Granted, the service was poor but his movements were sluggish, touches were bad, losing every battle with the defender and poor body language. He’s completely out of sorts. He should be step aside for next match.

Anelka was good. He was trying hard but I guess he wasn’t really playing the role he was supposed to. Well, he was in the right zones on the pitch but he had no chemistry with the forwards. I don’t think he set them up even once. But at least he tried hard, unlike Drogba. I never thought I’d ever say this in my life – Anelka tried, unlike Drogba!

Finally, Ancelotti. He was outwitted by Kenny Dalglish. Kenny had done his homework beautifully well. He knew what he wanted his team to do and he played by their limitations. He set his team up tactically well and shut us out. On the contrary, Carlo hardly changed anything. We went back to December. I’m fine with a poor first half performance but the second half? I had expected Chelsea to come out all guns blazing and knock them out of the park in the first 15 minutes. Carlo wasn’t ready to take risks.
Our 4-1-2-1-2 looked like an untested product. This formation with full backs charging down the wing doesn’t work with slow midfielders. Our full backs were pacy and were in the opponent half many times but our midfield is not quick enough to deal with any sudden counterattacks. Probably, our midfield was afraid of giving away counterattacks hence they played in a very subdued fashion. There was no ball-wise interaction between Lampard and Essien. They had to work together but they hardly did. Carlo had to make a change in the midfield. By the time he made a change we lost precious time and with it the momentum.

The only occasion a Chelsea player bothered Pepe Reina!

I hate it when we play like we’re out of ideas. With this kind of squad this can’t be happening. I hate it when we go through the motions over and over again to be met with the same result. I hate it when we become brain dead and it becomes obvious with more than a half to go and you know ‘it’s not happening today’. Carlo needs to shake things up. I’ve been saying this for many weeks now. He should take more risks. He should be lot more adventurous. He wasn’t brave enough. It showed in our team as we were nothing special today.

Even in the second half, we hardly showed any urgency. We weren’t passionate enough. We didn’t show the desire to beat them, at Stamford Bridge. For me, I understand a manager based on how his teams play. We were laid back, we played like it’s okay if we don’t win. We didn’t play like a team that badly wanted to close the gap with the leagu leaders and pull themselves back into the title race. For me, this was a reflection of Carlo Ancelotti. May be he had given up on the title, even before this match.

If Carlo doesn’t believe that we have a chance to win the title, all that he needs to do is to settle for a top four finish. If top four finish is what we want, he can afford to experiment and take some little risks. He can afford to drop some big names and play some new names.

If I were him, I’d not play these players in the next match – Drogba, Mikel, Essien & Lampard. What’s the worst thing that could happen? We might lose, right? We’ve lost seven times already this season and we have only 13 games left to close a 10 point gap. If this is Chelsea leading Man Utd by 10 points at this stage, you know what chance we’d have given them – zero. That’s almost what we have now. We may not do the double over Man Utd. It looks like a himalayan task now. Even if Man Utd were to slip, we’re not the only team to be benefitted by that. We need Man Utd, Arsenal and Man City to slip for us to have a go at the title.

Quite possibly, Carlo is only looking at the champions league. Interestingly, we are stronger than many other teams in the champions league with the new signings. I’m happy for Carlo to fully focus on the champions league provided he doesn’t play his first choice in the premier league week in week out. Carlo has decisions to make. A win today would have given him some sweet problems. Not anymore. The focus and direction should be clear now.

In a way, we’re like Liverpool now. Trailing by 10 points in February and all that’s left is champions league. They won it a few times and Carlo has too. Not many get as luck as Carlo. He’s got a world class striker in the January window that he can use in the champions league. C’mon Carlo, you can still win the double, only that premier league may not be one of them.