Well, now we know the answer. Despite giving Chelsea a helluva battle with a highly creditable 1st half performance, we were steam-rollered in the 2nd half and ultimately couldn’t live with a team in the Champions League Final and within a breath of stealing the Premier League from ManU.

It’s difficult to know what happened during the half time break to so utterly change the course of the game. Certainly without Viduka we seemed to lose all shape and organisation, and never really got back into the game from the restart.

We had worked extremely hard during the first 45 minutes, and seemed unable to continue making the telling runs, retain good possession, or provide support to the man in possession thereafter. John Terry revealed that Avram Grant had given his team a real rollicking at half time, so perhaps it was simply down to Chelsea moving up a gear or two.

Whatever the reason, the 2nd half was a real disappointment after such a thrilling opening 45mins. To be fair to Chelsea, they were excellent during the opening 30 minutes of that 2nd half, during which we were totally overrun in midfield.

I thought Taylor, Butt and Owen were our best performers on the day, although Martins caused Chelsea problems in the 1st half. Taylor handled Drogba terrifically well, and perhaps deserved his official MOTM award.

Butt had an excellent 1st half, being involved in almost everything for us, but like most of the others rather faded in the 2nd half. Owen worked his socks off all over the pitch. He missed a couple of difficult half-chances, but had a goal-bound shot cleared off the line by Terry.

I thought we ultimately lost it in midfield, where Barton in particular was poor, barely making a telling contribution in the entire 90mins. Smith ended up in midfield – I think. He was truly dreadful. We seemed to start the 2nd half in 4-4-2 with Martins and Smith playing up front.

With Chelsea running all over us, Smith dropped back into midfield leaving Martins on his own up front. This left us with no ‘out’ ball, and effectively conceding possession to Chelsea time and time again.

Tbph, I’m not sure what else we could have done in the circumstances, but I felt we’d have been better off telling Smith to stay forward, occupy Terry and Carvalho, and hopefully hold up the ball to allow others to get forward when we had possession.

As always, Smith was utterly useless in midfield, and we couldn’t possibly have been any worse off had he stayed up front with Martins foraging. There again…

Regarding Kevin Keegan, I didn’t see his post-match interview, but almost everything he is saying publicly right now concern me. I really don’t think he is happy with the management support behind the scenes at St. James’s Park, and I’m becoming increasingly concerned that, having kept the club in the Premier League, he may throw in the towel unless he starts getting the support he feels he needs.

One of his his most recent quotes is something like - “my relationship with Mike Ashley is perfect - I never speak to him”. Read into that what you will.

This was a game that provided us with a reality check, if one was needed, and confirmed just how far behind the Top 3 we really are. At our very best we can give them a game: drop below our very best by even a couple of percents and we are snookered.

For me, the game confirmed what I already knew – we have improved immeasurably under King Kev, but our midfield, in particular, is nowhere near good enough to take us back into the Top 6.

PS: nice to see Frank Lampard getting a little round of applause, after a few loons starting booing his introduction. Also nice to see him reciprocating on the final whistle. He seems a decent blerk to me, and has had a tough time personally recently.

Chelsea’s boss Avram Grant is questioning the referee decision to red-carded Ashley Cole in Boxing Day’s dramatic 4-4 draw with Aston Villa. He is accused referee Phil Dowd who’s in charge on that day as not being “honest” after Ashley Cole’s red card appeal was rejected by the FA.

“The referee and his assistant should have been honest. Ashley Cole saved the ball with his head, not his hand. If I was in their position, I’d expect them to be honest. They had their chance at the appeal.” He said as quoted from the Mirror.

“They thought he’d saved it with his hand. I spoke to the referee and his assistant after the game and they said that Ashley had saved it with his hand. But the television shows he saved it with his head.”

“I expected them to say they were sorry, they were wrong - like Carvalho did when he apologised for his foul straight after the game. Now they’re saying it was head to chest and then maybe touching his hand.” He added more.

“No. It was clear that he saved it with his head. Maybe we have to think about bothering to appeal in future. Now I’m waiting for the first mistake that’ll help us in the season.”

And he didn’t have to wait longer to see the mistake that will help him in the season. He was remaining tight lips and defends the Mike Riley’s decision to allow Salomon Kalou’s goal, scored from ‘No Need For Television Reply’ offside position. If there’s a red-card appeal, then why there’s no chance to appeal for any dubious decision like Kalou’s goal?

The Chelsea fans booed Avram Grant before Kalous snatched a late controversial winner against us at Stamford Bridge.