BlueLion.

Blackburn Rovers vs. Chelsea Chelsea head to Ewood Park to face Blackburn Rovers as they look to stay top of the Premier League. The task is not an enviable one, with Chelsea struggling to a 1-0 win in this fixture last season thanks to a Joe Cole stunner. However, with Rovers scoring only three times in five home league matches so far this term, an imperious Chelsea defence - which has conceded just once away from home this season in the league - will look to bounce back from defeat in Rome. Match chat here!

Yeah spot on. Now I've calmed down, I have to look at the game, and say that we certainly weren't at our best tonight, but its simply a bad game. I don't think we actually played poorly enough to deserve such a negative scoreline, but we were uncharacteristically sloppy in defence. The first goal - we were caught out. Yes, it was a clever free kick, but all four of our defenders just stood still and let Panucci walk it in basically. A bad error, all through a lack of communication. The second goal was purely brilliant and totally undefendable, in my opinion. Cracking effort. The third goal was soft to concede, but as we were going forward and leaving ourselves exposed, we were rightly punished. Showed some balls, though, and scoring made it more respectable, I think. Overall, a frustrating night where we were not at our best, but we can take heart that we were beaten purely by passion tonight - the Roma team needed to perform and sometimes in football, the out-of-forum underdog goes and beats the superior team. Its just one of those nights and we've unfortunately come out the worst on this occasion. However, on the positive side, its just one game and whilst we can lament poor refereeing, careless play and sloppy defending, we have to accept the fact we were second best and respond in a way potential champions do - by winning. We did it after the Liverpool game and we will have to pick ourselves up to play Blackburn, which will no doubt be a very tough game. Yes, we've lost, and we were abysmal defensively, but we remain top of the group and even though Bordeaux and Roma now have got six points, we have seven, and the pressure that we are now under to make sure we secure both passage to the knock out rounds and top spot for a more favourable draw means we might see the team take the opposition a little more seriously. We underestimated Roma because of their poor form and they gave us a good old fight tonight. A win away in Bordeaux is achievable after seeing us tear them apart at the Bridge, and Cluj at home will be difficult but we have the quality to open them up. There are some positives - as I mentioned, we're still top of the group, so things could be worse for us. John Terry scores again, which is nice to see, albeit ultimately in vain, he's scored as many goals this season as he had done the previous two years combined, so well done to him, but the biggest positive is that Drogba is getting closer and closer to full match fitness. He was fairly rusty tonight but that was to be expected, but he did cause a few problems and had a couple of chances as well. But overall a very poor display and a disappointing result, but if we can respond with a couple of wins first at Blackburn then at home to Burnley in the Carling Cup, we can look back and say 'lesson learned.'

Abysmal.

3-0, game over.

They have some excellent players on the bench. Watch out for 'Rigo Taddei. Enjoy the game, people, I'm going to watch it at the pub down the road, couple of Blues in there

Roma 32 Doni 03 Cicinho 05 Mexes 04 Juan 02 Panucci 20 Perrotta 16 De Rossi 33 Brighi 07 Pizarro 10 Totti 09 Vucinic Substitutes 25 Artur, 11 Taddei, 15 Loria, 17 Riise, 19 Julio Baptista, 22 Tonetto, 24 Menez Chelsea 01 Cech 17 Bosingwa 26 Terry 33 Alex 18 Bridge 20 Deco 12 Mikel 08 Lampard 10 J Cole 39 Anelka 15 Malouda Substitutes 23 Cudicini, 02 Ivanovic, 09 Di Santo, 11 Drogba, 19 Ferreira, 21 Kalou, 35 Belletti

Paulo seems to be pretty content at the Bridge, signed a new deal last term, so unless he is forced out I don't think he'd leave.

Stunning save! The way he adjusted himself was absolutely incredible. I'm surprised no-one has gone for his save against Spurs in the 0-0 at the Bridge back in 2004, from Robbie Keane's header. And Geremi's back-header than nearly went in for an own goal at Bolton. Ahh, great memories. I'm so sad that I can remember every one of them

An interesting read on the official website says Frank's goal at the weekend actually wasn't his 100th Premier League goal, and was instead his 100th career league goal, which includes one strike he made against Brighton for Swansea. http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0...1443084,00.html

That was a pretty stunning save, good call

I know I did a topic similar to this in the past, but in order to commemorate 180 appearances, 100 clean sheets and a thousand stunning pieces of goalkeeping, what is your greatest Petr Cech save? Its one nomination per member, and we'll do a wee poll in a few day's time For those of you who are struggling, here is a cracking compilation of some of his best from 06/07: And if you still can't remember, look at this thread (from this time last year) for some ideas For me... Petr Cech versus Liverpool, UEFA Champions League Semi-final, April 2007, Stamford Bridge Chelsea took the lead through Joe Cole in the first half, but Liverpool would surely have equalised but for an incredible save from Big Pete. Gerrard's stunning, dipping volley was destined for the net by Cech snaked out a hand and pushed it aside brilliantly. The save I refer to is at 0.54 in the above video

The home crowd would be very unforgiving if they defended for 90 minutes at the SO.

Well in response to the actual story, we could pair them up against the 'bigger' teams and the tougher defences. Drogba is certainly a handful in the air and that alone frightens defenders, and Anelka's pace and movement added to this would certainly mean a few more pairs of underpants will be needed for the centre backs.

For me, the likes of Aguero and Benzema are better players than Drogba at the moment, and their speed and movement would be perfectly suited to our system at the moment. However, if we're looking for a winger, Benzema's old teammate, Hatem Ben Arfa would be a top choice. Has since moved to Marseille but a decent monetary offer from us and we could see him at the Bridge.

'I will be very happy to come back here in May.' After going through the Bullshit Generator, this reads as: 'See you in May, motherfuckers!' So yes, the media are making stories from nothing. Shows how desperate they are for stories now.

Would be an absolutely wonderful piece of news, Mikel has been the most-improved and most-consistent player this season, he puts established players like Scholes, Mascherano and Barry to shame.

Each to their own, I'm not arguing either way, I'm simply saying Anelka is doing the business - a striker is meant to score goals and he is doing that this season. Furthermore, what little we have so far seen of DD11 this season has shown he really isn't up for it, but I suppose he has yet to have had the run in the side he needs to get going. However, its nice to have these selection problems, don't you think?

Granted, and if we could match his wages I'm sure we'd have a case, but do we want to spend such a large amount on Robinho when we should be going after even better players, like Benzema?

Buying a player of this calibre for nothing is a step in the right direction if this club wants to start making a positive turnover.

A draw would actually not be the worst result, in my opinion.

Drogba's physicality and Anelka's pace and intelligence are equally as scary for defenders IMO.

I'm sure you mean the one from Ryan Giggs in the CL final?

Robinho will stay for the wages they are paying him even if they finish in the bottom half, I guess.

I think he broke his leg, TB, which would explain the absence. Apparently Milan are after him: http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=940156

I love the way he marches away then puts his hands on his head