Before
It's been an interesting transfer window to say the least. Bent already seems like history to me now and I'm very pleased that we've got Sessegnon and Muntari with loads of money left over. I was a bit sad to see Reidy go and I wish him well while hopefully we've finally offloaded Healy. Maybe he'll get his debut in the Old Firm match on Sunday, which will be a bit of a comedown after his last appearance at Hetton for our reserves. Chelsea are definitely on the way back up and last week's 4-0 win at Bolton gave me food for thought. With Lampard and Essien back in the side they'll be a different proposition to when we beat them at Stamford Bridge while of course we'll be missing Welbeck, our star man from that game. It's only 3 p.m. And our starting line-up is unclear but Sessegnon should make his debut and there was talk of Mensah coming back, which would be great if it happened. Chelsea have beaten us on their last five visits so it's time for us to end that run but I can't see us winning it. I think it'll be very tight and end in a 1-1 draw. Mind you, I couldn't see us winning in the away game too.

The Match
I got the match on Real Radio and our fans were coming across loud and clear. It was all us in the opening minutes and next thing Scots goal-machine Bardo stormed down the left and lashed it into the net from outside the box. As they had to, Chelsea began to press a lot more and won a few corners without really threatening but then they got a soft-sounding penalty that Lampard duly converted. So, after fifteen minutes it was all-square again. Gyan showed his confidence when his bicycle kick from some distance went just wide but Sess had had a fairly quiet start. On a domestic note my boiler recently clapped out and as I was showing the gas engineer in the door, Chelsea scored again through Kalou. I thought the engineer had gone into some kind of trance but then it turned out that he was a Chelsea fan and had been transfixed by the commentary. As we messed around with thermostats and discussed the Chelsea game in November Rico lashed our second one in from a low free-kick. Ivanovic hit a powerful effort against the bar and Drogba had a strong header that went straight to Gordon but in between we stormed back with Sessegnon starting to show his pace. It had been a swift-flowing open game and at half-time it remained 2-2.

The engineer departed saying, “I hope you lose” and I returned the sentiment just before we kicked off again. We were under the cosh for the first few minutes though we rode our luck but Chelsea continued to dominate and finally we cracked around the hour-mark when Gordon did well to save Lampard's shot but Terry hit home the rebound. With half an hour to go I felt sure there'd be another goal somewhere. It almost came when Chelsea hit the inside of a post and they continued to have the better of it. With ten minutes to go Steed was replaced by Colback and shortly after Cook came on for Onuoha. There'd been several long breaks and it was no surprise when five minutes of stoppage-time were announced. Chelsea were getting booed for wasting-time and I was hoping for a few more added minutes but these hopes were dashed when Anelka got their fourth from close range.

So, it ended 2-4, which is never a good thing, but our fans applauded loudly at the whistle and I think we can feel proud of the way we played against a side returning to their best. Until this season we'd have expected to get walloped every time we played Chelsea but we've beaten them 5-4 on aggregate this time around.

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