BlueLion.

Am I being too optimistic?

I don't think you can solely blame the referee. A large factor, yes, but an easy excuse to deflect away from a dire, dire performance.

Karma. It's a bitch, ain't it?

Fabian Delph's magnificent late winner consigned Chelsea to just their fourth league defeat of the season to derail the Blues' title bid. In a bad-tempered game, both Willian and Ramires were sent off in what is a disastrous result for the league leaders. Though they remain six points clear of second placed Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini's side have three games in hand on the Blues, whilst fellow title contenders Arsenal and Liverpool can now close the gap on Chelsea to a mere point should they also win their respective games in hand. Chelsea, who were extremely poor, were certainly not helped by some ludicrous officiating from Chris Foy, whose decision to dismiss Willian was extraordinarily harsh, and borderline comical. Whilst their can be no question over Ramires' sending off, as the Brazilian lunged in on Leandro Bacuna in stoppage time, Chelsea and José Mourinho will feel especially aggrieved by a number of contentious refereeing decisions. The farside linesman, too, will no doubt incur the wrath of the Portuguese for a handful of contentious offside decisions, not least early on with the clearly onside Fernando Torres raced through on goal, one-on-one with Brad Guzan; and the Blues also were unfortunate to see a goal by Nemanja Matic chalked off for an alleged handball. Right at the end of the first half, Matic looked to have given his side the lead, but he was penalised by the referee for handball, when arguably the contact was more shoulder than arm. Though Chelsea supporters will justifiably be upset with the performance of the officials - Foy in particular, who has past with the Blues - that factor should most definitely not be used as an argument to cover up what was a totally insipid showing. Following thrilling recent London derby wins over Fulham and Tottenham, the Blues, as an attacking unit, looked as potent a side as any in the Premier League. However, the ease with which a suspect Villa defence dealt with Chelsea's forwards will add to a growing list of concerns for Mourinho. Suddenly, City are back in the driving seat as far as the title race is concerned, and the Blues will now have to react strongly to bounce back and beat Arsenal next weekend. That game and a trip to Anfield aside, the remainder of the Blues' eight remaining league fixtures are against teams currently occupying the bottom half of the table. But that in itself is a reason to be fearful - the Blues, like tonight, seem to struggle against the sides in the league's lower thralls, as disappointing recent draws against West Ham and West Bromwich Albion have highlighted. But after Manchester City's impressive win at Hull this afternoon - themselves down to ten men - Mourinho will now have to accept the title is most definitely out of his hands, at least for the moment. Whilst Chelsea were in disarray come the final whistle, City looked like champions as they withstood substantial pressure at the KC Stadium. The Portuguese has not relented in his insistence that City remain favourites for the title, and the naivety demonstrated by a Chelsea side not lacking in experienced heads this evening goes a long way to justify such claims. Mourinho has claimed his side are not the finished article, and their inability to perform against the league's weaker sides with the same vibrancy and panache as they do against teams bragging more quality is an obvious chink in the Chelsea armour. Villa Park remains a graveyard for the Special One - in four visits there he has yet to taste success; drawing two and losing two of those games. But none of those previous fixtures exhibited something as close to the near-meltdown his team suffered this evening. Mourinho himself was sent to the stands in the aftermath of Ramires' dangerous, studs-up challenge - and he will be without the Brazilian now for three league matches for said dismissal. Willian's farcical second yellow card capped off what was an embarrassing evening for Foy, who has also previously dismissed two Chelsea players in one game before. Even Fabian Delph, the player supposedly "fouled" by the Brazilian, looked bemused; a sentiment shared by Mourinho. Villa themselves were somewhat fortunate to escape similar punishment themselves - captain Ron Vlaar somehow was only shown a yellow after scything down Demba Ba, and young Joe Bennett may well have been given his marching orders prior to that when he brought down Ramires. Those two occurrences were the type of decision referees these days always seem to favour the home side with - had said challenges been at Stamford Bridge, Villa too may well have been walking the disciplinary tightrope. But this was a game were the luck the Blues benefited from against Tottenham last week in Younes Kaboul's incredibly harsh dismissal seemed to turn against them - but it must be acknowledged that Chelsea were a long, long way off their impressive best. There were certainly glimpses, with Eden Hazard at the heart of what little good the Blues were able to create, but in the end they were undone by Delph's sumptuous, improvised back-heel winner to give Villa a win their endeavour warranted. The home team may well have had a little help from the officials, but they will cite August's defeat to Chelsea in the reverse fixture, where they were unfortunate to be beaten. What goes around... Whether this will have truly serious repercussions in the title race remains to be seen - City's schedule does see them still need to travel to Manchester United, Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool - but the short-term damage does appear to be severe: this slip-up may well allow the latter pair of the aforementioned sides to truly reassert themselves as contenders for the league crown. In the meantime, however, Chelsea must hope and pray that the damage can be muted by United and Tottenham, who can do them a favour as they host Liverpool and Arsenal tomorrow.

Thank you Barbara for your contribution!

Agree about retiring #26, but you can't retire a shirt between 1-11 for me. I know there are examples, but they are frontline squad numbers.

Are those ranking those stupid ones Castrol make?

It would clearly be me. But anyways, enough of that keyboard warrior and his sniper bollocks. Let's all talk about how all the strikers we're targeting are all Grade-A whining bastards.

Costa also has the bollocks to play for this team. Well, he did...

I think it should say KEVIN ARNOLD ASHBURNER instead, personally.

In all seriousness, I think Eden will take it. His Twitter name, still, is hazardeden10, after all.

Good to have three strikers to choose from, but Ba deserves to start ahead of Torres.

Nottingham, England.

There's a difference between "debate" and calling people mugs. Your attitude towards a lot of our members - international or otherwise - is very disappointing, and in my mind it was only a matter of time before somebody reacted to your pretty antagonistic posts. Which is why the topic is - and will remain - locked.

Which club was that mate? And what degree did you read?

No, this thread is basically labelling anyone outside of the Royal Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham as gloryhunters and asking them to fuck off... Why do I support Chelsea? Because I can. And I will. I always have done, and I always will do. And on that note, you bunch of glory-hunting armchair wankers, this topic is locked, before someone starts a flame war.

^ wait, you have a local team? Why do you support Chelsea then?

Lukasz Fabianski played brilliantly for Arsenal last night, I thought. Glad to see him make the penalty save late on as well, Bayern didn't deserve to win.

So now we have to prove we're all Chelsea fans? How does "fuck off" sound? :lol: You certainly have something on your shoulder.

As you say, I think we'd do better to slow things down. We're still only in March. Let's look at him at the end of next month and see if he's ready for 90 minutes of football. I know World Cups are massive for players, but how old is he, 20, 21? He'll go to plenty of them.