Chelsea 4-4 Liverpool | You've Been Had by the BlueChampions!

@$#*%! Stunned! I’ve never seen anything like that in my years of watching football!

Absolutely unbelievable! Such a heart-stopper! Quality of football was in fact poor but what a great advertisement for football and in particular the Premier League brand of football. What a win. Man, I need a week for this to sink in!

This was a fantastic match because we ended up winning the tie. Otherwise, this could have been the worst night for a Chelsea fan, worse than the Champions League final night I’d say! Not a great performance by Chelsea but what they achieved was a fantastic result.

Bad things first. We conceded four goals. Aurelio’s goal was a brilliant one. Very very intelligent goal. The penalty was a foul but I have seen these things not being called. Ivanovic was fouled in the box by Carragher and I’ve seen those being given. Lucas got a lucky deflection which must have been a bit embarrassing for himself. Great work by Kuyt for the last goal while the Chelsea defence did nothing but watch like in those Scolari days.

Superb contributions from Drogba, Lampard, Anelka and Malouda. It all started with that goal from Drogba. That was a very cross from Anelka but full marks to Drogba for attempting a shot. Not many strikers would have attempted a shot from that angle. Most would have tapped it on the defender to get a corner. Not Drogba. His shot surprised Reina and with so less time to react he could only palm it to the net.

It was this goal that brought Chelsea back on its feet.

As a fan, I knew that Chelsea are not going to let this go now, not when Didier is finding the net. The second goal was a cracker. That was Alex at his very best. He did not seem too concerned about shooting at the top corner because he had such a powerful shot that’s simply unsaveable. Carvalho bowing down to allow Alex’s shot was an quick indication but it was all over in a flash. It was certainly in Reina’s arms length but as the commentator said he’d have lost his arm if he had tried to stop it.

At 2-2, it was surely our game but we had to kill the game. Ballack made a superb pass to Drogba. And unsurprisingly Drogba controlled the ball with ease in the Liverpool box and passed in to Lampard. He doesn’t miss those. I particularly loved the way Drogba let the defender fall flat on the ground while he passed it at ease to Lampard. He also did that to Carragher as he always does.

Last five minutes of stoppage time. 3-4 was very scary. We had to score for various reasons. One is we needed to be sure of the progression. Two is we can’t be losing at home to Liverpool. Three, the last goal of such a game had to be ours. In came Frank Lampard with a great shot that had Reina watching and Rafa crying.

Game over. Truly this time.

Great stuff by Hiddink. Though we started poorly, he was quick to react and brought on Anelka for Kalou. He could have easily brought in Mikel but he knew that the solution is by scoring goals and not just by trying to stop them. Second half was way better. I started seeing Chelsea get fouls and free kicks much more. That looked like a game plan by itself. Only in the second half, we started showing some intent to score goals. Good response from Hiddink.

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"We were angry because we didn’t start as we planned. We know playing against Liverpool, a good team with skilful players, you cannot give them a lot of space. We did, we dropped back too much, with false safety backwards," he analysed.

"That’s more or less a tactical thing. I think the focus is also on the duels. We lost too many duels in the first half and that’s not good, you cannot go into a duel and then not have the right reaction, so tactically but also mentally. We said this is not the way we go into this second half. That’s why I like to work with this team, this team reacts, and we know that we can score. Happily we did early in the second half."

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Last laugh: “the satisfaction of ultimate triumph or success especially after being scorned or regarded as a failure”. 2-0 up at Stamford Bridge under half hour. So what? Maybe they shouldn’t have celebrated so much so early. Luckily, I’ve recorded this match. Every time I see the Liverpool players and fans celebrating, I’m gonna laugh out loud.

But credit to Liverpool, for fighting the way they did, for playing with that kind of hope and confidence. But no credit to Rafa who was expecting to lose and was repeatedly surprised by his own players. Rafa did not play to win. He wouldn’t even have put a tenner on Liverpool making it. He just thought that he could rest Gerrard and Riera and to have a go with the rest.

He was surprised by the two goal lead by half-time. And when Lampard put us to a 3-2 lead, he took off Torres keeping the Premier League game in mind. Truly, he didn’t have any hopes of getting through. It was his players hope and confidence, plus some typical Champions League luck and some poor defending by Chelsea that gave him something to think about.

Chelsea started badly because the approach was incorrect. We were playing as if we were looking for a 0-0 draw. Completely faulty. As I mentioned in the earlier blog, if we do that we’d playing into their strengths and that’s what exactly happened. The thing with early goals is that it really gives the momentum to the opposition and makes us really nervous.

From nowhere Liverpool suddenly got this belief that the unthinkable might just be possible. Luckily in the second half, though the quality of football did not improve, the approach certainly was different which is what won us the tie.

I can’t tell you how happy I am. For the second season in succession, we’ve knocked off Liverpool whose only reason for existence is the Champions League. Annihilating Liverpool at Anfield plus eliminating them from the Champions League at Stamford Bridge. The icing on the cake is that they were 2-0 up under half hour and all those uber fans must have been on cloud nine.

I’m sorry guys. Just in case you can’t see, I’m showing you my middle finger. You’ve been had by the BlueChampions!

It’s Barca in the semifinals. I feel much more confident about the Barca match than I was about the Liverpool match. The first leg would be at Camp Nou on 28 April and the second leg at Stamford Bridge on 6 May. They have Messi? So what? We have Malouda (no smiley here).

Barca’s defence is weak and they have not been tested by quality attacks. Barca’s attack is not strong in the air and our defence is strong on the ground. Would be a tough tie but Chelsea would get through to the finals.

Mark my words—Drogba and Lampard are the men to watch, as always. For now, enjoy this fantastic result. Have that huge grin on your face! Blue is the colour . . .