Laivasse

After all their multimillion pound signings Liverpool look as bad as they did last season when we faced them under Houllier. However what's different his time is that we actually gave it a go for a quarter of an hour and it's changed everything. Hopefully we will break the habit of a season now and actually not capitulate.

Another one... Cisse really scores for fun.

I expressed doubts over Lichaj coming in for Hutton - who I don't even rate - and I think Lichaj did enough in the Chelsea match to sooth my fears. Let's face it, a choice between Lichaj and Hutton is not the most important issue we are facing, since Hutton is wank on the whole and even when he is playing 'well' he's basically wank with extra mayonnaise. Just play Eric as a reward for his good performance. I wouldn't play him over Warnock as we have enough wrong-sided players on the flanks already. Warnock's put in a threatening cross or two over the last few games and we need all the goal threat we can get in our situation.

He's looking like one of the least motivated, most demoralised players atm so this is not a decision I feel too enthusiastic about. At the same time I can't think of anybody else who would have been a better choice. Collins, while physically imposing, doesn't strike me as an assertive presence on the pitch, more often deferring to others. Given is similar and hasn't really been with the club long enough. The only other realistic choice would be Ireland, since he is the creative heart of the team and is the only player who has a bit of spite and pride to his play atm. However, nominating a milquetoast like him would likely piss off players like Gabby, so it's lose-lose. Best case is Gabby feels a bit inspired by his, plays better, scores goals. Worst case is that he is as uninspiring as a captain as he has been in his all round play recently.

Yes, an excellent pundit and bad co-commentator so far. I don't think he's sussed that they need different approaches; as a pundit people are deferring to you and you can hold forth like a bloke in the pub, but there's a lower threshold for rambling and emotionality when commentating.

£10m release clause says to me that Ba's a shop window player, maybe even more mercenary than your average footballer. He wouldn't stay here more than one good season, maybe less. Not to mention that £0 relegation release (if he still has it) would be looking scary right now if he'd have come here... Papisse Cisse looks really excellent though. 8 in 8 games, with a palpable swagger and hunger about him.

Yes, I was going to post about Marc's only other assist also being from the left. However I don't think this style of play is something to be encouraged by keeping him on the left over a longer period of time. The problem is that on the left he crosses from deeper than Ash used to, which means the crosses are much easier for teams to see and defend, which accounts for there being no more than two assists. On the flipside, the crosses are easier for our attackers to see, also, which is one reason they're marginally more effective than crosses from the right, because our movement in the box is so bad that any crosses from near the byline go begging. Furthermore Marc's the only one likely to ever whip in a good byline cross from the right and he can't beat his fullback lately so it just doesn't happen. For the small amount of time we dominated possession against Chelsea, we had them boxed into their own third yet could get hardly any decent delivery into their box beyond the second goal. Most of that was because we had Alby on the left and Bannan on the right, both terrified to attack the byline since it would mean crossing on their weaker side. Chelsea could head out most of our deep crossing in their sleep. FWIW I thought Gabby and Warnock matched Marc on Saturday by producing one decent cross each, but as ever we had nobody anticipating them well enough - nobody making a run to get goalside of their marker, nobody making a gamble at the near post or back post, nobody hanging back slightly in the centre. What was good about Marc's cross was what Lichaj did to attack the ball, which is what we don't have enough of from our so-called attackers - even Bent when he was fit.

Just equalised. Beautifully half-volleyed into the floor.

I agree we didn't quite get a fair shot but then how often is the playing field really level in any match. Gabby still had one CB and the keeper to beat, which is not something Gabby does easily. If we had drawn the game it would have been a smash and grab, because for 75 minutes we didn't do a damn thing to deserve to score. The goals we scored were scored against a Chelsea who were lazy and coasting; the goals we conceded were conceded against a Chelsea who realised they had more to do and did it (easily). I'm not denying we conceded soft ones, but from looking at our performance Chelsea had plenty of room to push for some not-so-soft ones had they thought more goals necessary. They thought they weren't necessary, they were wrong, they woke up and rectified their mistake all too easily.

Suarez - Ronaldo with only the cheating.

7 in his first 7 games now. Damn handy little guy.

A thought more depressing than today's game and the state of the table: the result didn't make any difference to Lerner. We're 5 points off being level with the team in 19th (ie. 6 real points off relegation) and most of the teams below us won today, yet I don't think McLeish's job is any less safe than it was. Lerner's silence should start being recognised for what it is, a complete admission of failure and of there being no plan B.

Another tactically inept, gutless performance, right up until the 75th minute or so when Lichaj and one or two others brought us right back into it. However at that point, Chelsea proved what many of us have been saying for a long time - teams are beating us in 1st gear. Our losses by 1, 2 or 3 goals all flatter to deceive, since our performances could easily have got us a real thrashing in those games. The reality is we send opponents to sleep, and the same happened today until our comeback woke Chelsea up. The referee did us no favours but Gabby still had a lot to do in that position, so let's not pretend we deserved to win or draw. Lichaj MotM. The table is looking pretty terrifying atm.

And Torres breaks his duck. This game couldn't be any more cruel or humiliating. Wish I hadn't watched.

FFS, despite all this pressure, having our wing players play on the wrong foot prevented us from crossing from the byline even once.

AW, **** hell. This game inspires more nihilism than a Coen brothers film.

CHELSEAS 2 - LICHAJ 2!!!!! Get in you **** beauty! Go for 3!

Yeaaaaaarsss. Stoke eat your heart out. Nice touch Collins.

Trevor **** Francis, sympathising with Heskey on the bench and guessing at his internal monologue as if Ivanhoe would be a game changer for us. Sure, if he was on we'd be hammering in shots on target as that's what he always does. **** off.

Wolve beating Bolton would actually be good for us because it keeps Bolton 7 points behind (assuming we lose to Chelsea).Agreed. Out of Wolves and Bolton, Bolton are the only ones who could realistically catch us imo.Wigan beating Stoke not so clever though.Again agreed.

Wolve beating Bolton would actually be good for us because it keeps Bolton 7 points behind (assuming we lose to Chelsea).Agreed. Out of Wolves and Bolton, Bolton are the only ones who could realistically catch us imo.

Even Terry was arguing in Warnock's favour there. Great work from Gabby just before that, with the turn and left-footed cross. Much earlier in the season we might have had enough attacking intent to make something of that.

Balls. Game over. All so easy for them.

Yes as far as I can tell. Good start to the 2nd.

We need to push much higher up, get in among them and hassle them on the ball. Chelsea have so much space it's unreal and we don't seem to have pacey enough players to counterattack. It's like McLeish has a phobia of conceding goals, which leads him to pursue exactly the kind of tactics that lead to conceding goals. Admittedly I only started watching since the 25th minute but we'd already conceded so something must have been going wrong before that.