The most important aspect of this match was the way Chelsea battled back to rescue a point. Ramires' goal following a well chosen substitution by Jose of Oscar and Remy gave me flashbacks of last year's 2-1 loss. This time, with confidence resumed we finished fantastically despite some truly inexcusable ineptness in defence on a day when we should have cut the lead of 'Manchester' to six points instead of eight. Although we shall have to wait and see if Arsene "Tartuffe" Wenger can try to persuade the FA not to count the last 20 minutes of the match towards the final result.
You cannot blame the absence of Diego Costa for the two goals conceded today. Such abysmal marking is the stuff of relegation candidates rather than a team looking to fight back to win the league. Quite why Remy is seen as an adequate replacement for our angry Spaniard either is beyond me too. He plays like a winger who has been reluctantly thrust up front and when in promising positions to score makes terrible choices. The constant jeers towards him at St James's where there were sadly many empty seats seemed to affect him. Why not risk Falcao instead?
The marking for our first goal showed a clear lack of communication between Zouma and Ivanovic. The words they were looking for should have been either "I've lost it, you take control" or "let me take the ball". Then to have Fabregas so lazily not mark his man from a set piece must drive the manager and Begovic - who otherwise had an excellent game again - livid.
Porto is our next stop and after Barcelona is the away ground I have visited the most in Europe. Realistically, I do not believe that this season may be our last run in the European Cup for a while. Zouma is still learning so I can forgive the odd mistake. It is more the decision making of our more experienced players when defending that gives me the shivers which is why I am attempting to treat every away trip as a gift from heaven. And for once there is a story that will overshadow this embarrassing result and for this we must thank Sepp Blatter.
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