Liverpool were hammered in their own back-yard in the Champions League tonight as Chelsea took a huge step on the road to a possible Rome final.
Chelsea produced a performance of great quality and strength to leave Liverpool's dreams in tatters after this quarter-final first leg.

Five things Liverpool can do to overcome the 3-1 deficit in their Champions League quarter-final second leg against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
1 Employ their midfield generals

At Anfield Chelsea dominated midfield with both work rate and exceptional passing.

A few eyebrows will doubtless be raised by Chelsea's decision to appoint an exotic continental manager with a poor grasp of English just six months after sacking an exotic continental manager with a poor grasp of English. Accusations were certainly cast about Luiz Felipe Scolari's ability to control the dressing room given his alarming accurate impression of an overweight Andrew Sachs in Fawlty Towers.

Gallery, Images, Photo's & Pictures of Chelsea FC v Club America World Football Challenge Championship, the 26th of July, 2009. Teams/Clubs: Chelsea FC, Club America Players/People: Franco di Santo, John Terry, Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda, Henrique Hilario, Juliano Belletti, Ricardo Carvalho, Ross Turnbull, Branislav Ivanovic, Nicholas Anelka, Sam Hutchinson.

Fiorentina seem intentionned to sign two new defenders; Christian Zapata from Udinese and/or Branislav Ivanovic from Chelsea, while Benfica's David Luiz seems unreachable for La Viola. At this moment Zapata has reportedly outrunned Ivanovic, due to non cooperation from his club Chelsea. The real dream of the Tuscan club, which will, for 99% sure, stay a [.

Ancelotti keen to use Bosingwa as part of Ribery deal.

Bayern Munich stepped up their pursuit of Jose Bosingwa and urged Chelsea to keep their word over allowing him to join them for about £15million.
The German giants dismissed claims Roman Abramovich was flying to Munich to try and sign Franck Ribery but insisted the Chelsea owner had agreed to discuss a deal for Bosingwa in the wake of Sunday's Community Shield success over Manchester United.

FBL-EUR-C1-LIVERPOOL-CHELSEA
Originally uploaded by Hussain Kroof Liverpool 1 - Chelsea 3
(Champions League, Abril 8, 2009)
Realmente sorprendente este resultado, el Liverpool se aleja de otra Gran Final pero al parecer el Drama no dejara hasta el final a los rojos, todos los aficionados del Liverpool musical tienen ciertas esperanzas.

"If you concede because you are outplayed or outpaced you get angry but, when you calm down, you accept it ­happens in football," said manager Guus Hiddink, after Chelsea nearly blew a four-goal lead in a 4-3 win over Bolton on Saturday at Stamford Bridge.

"But when you outplay yourself...

Three English clubs - Chelsea, Manchester United, and Arsenal - made it into the semi-finals of the Champions League this week. Manchester United looked vulnerable after drawing the first leg of their quarter-final tie with Porto at Old Trafford. But they squeaked by with a 1-0 win at Porto in the second leg today, thanks largely to a superb, long-range strike from Cristiano Ronaldo.

Reliable centre back is considering his options.

According to a report in The Daily Mail, English giants Liverpool and German powerhouse Bayern Munich are closely monitoring the situation of Chelsea centre-back Alex.

The strong defender's current deal is due to expire in the summer of 2010, and the 27-year-old reportedly wants a longer deal than the two-year extension offered by the Blues.

As I mentioned earlier, my father was at the Chelsea game this past Saturday. I had him write my a little guest blog, and as promised here it is.
I arrived at the Reebok in gentle late afternoon sunshine. No, that's not a joke. In fact, you can tell that the stadium was not built with sunshine in mind, since for the first half an hour or so I was there, it was shining directly into my eyes (at first I was so surprised by the unaccustomed glow I thought Wigan must be on fire – no such luck, however), making it hard to concentrate on the cheerleaders.

What. A. Game. Stand up and be applauded if you saw this result coming.
Branislav Ivanovic is now my new man crush.
Bring on the second leg.

Highlights and reaction following Chelsea's sterling 3-1 win at Anfield in the first leg of the Blues' Champions League quarterfinal against Liverpool.

Highlights

Reaction

Man, I still haven't come down from Wednesday. I mean, I haven't been able to think straight since that absolutely superlative display.

Anyway, we must move on unfortunately. Next up for the Blues is Bolton at Stamford Bridge today.

If ever there was a straight-forward match, this would seem to be it.

Peace out.

The newly-renamed Chris Sutton-Winston Bogarde Award for wack transfer of the season goes to ... Luiz Felipe Scolari
The fat, loveable World Cup winner traded national team football with Portugal for the sunny side of London and Stamford Bridge.

Soccerlens was at the Chelsea-Inter World Football Challenge game in California tonight - what follows is a live blog from that game.

Chelsea take on and humble their previous manager Jose Mourniho at the hirstoric Rose Bowl stadium on a sunny California night.

A very festive atmosphere out here at the Rose Bowl as mostly Chelsea fans continue to pour in to fill the stadium close to capacity.

Israelis advance in Europe, Scots do not...
A bit of what's bouncing around Butt's Brain in the past few days:

• How a soccer game survived a hijacking attempt. Big respect to most Celtic supporters for their actions during last week's Europa League match with (John Pantsil's former club) Hapoel Tel Aviv [Jerusalem Post]

• Avram Grant plans to raid Chelsea's bench for two players in January.

Multi-purpose bodies have played key role in Fire's early success
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. - It is pretty clear-cut what Chicago Fire head coach Denis Hamlett's criteria are: game shape, versatility and breaking into his top 11 player list.
Salaries don't play a factor. Past successes and accomplishments are a non-issue.

Bayern Munich: Jorg Butt, Phillip Lahm,Lucio, Martín De Michelis, Christian Lell; Andreas Ottl, Zé Roberto, Mark Van Bommel, José Sosa; Franck Ribéry, Luca Toni

Barcelona: Víctor Valdés, Eric Abidal, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Dani Alves, Andrés Iniesta, Touré Yaya, Xavi, Seydou Keita, Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto'o

-

Chelsea FC: Petr Cech, Ashley Cole, Branislav Ivanovic, Alex, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Essien, Florent Malouda, Michael Ballack, Solomon Kalou, Didier Drogba

Liverpool FC: Pepe Reina, Álvaro Arbeloa, Martin Skrtel, Jamie Carragher, Fabio Aurélio, Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso, Yossi Benayoun, Kuyt, Fernando Torres

Posted in Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Champions League, chelsea, Liverpool Tagged: Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Champions League, chelsea, Liverpool

A few eyebrows will doubtless be raised by Chelsea's decision to appoint an exotic continental manager with a poor grasp of English just six months after sacking an exotic continental manager with a poor grasp of English. Accusations were certainly cast about Luiz Felipe Scolari's ability to control the dressing room given his alarming accurate impression of an overweight Andrew Sachs in Fawlty Towers.

Despite the likes of Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Ricardo Carvalho, Branislav Ivanovic, Jose Bosingwa, Michael Ballack and Deco not featuring Chelsea stormed past Wolves with a 4-0 victory at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea made easy work of the opposition as Florent Malouda, Michael Essien (2) and Joe Cole wrapped up the three points with ease as we kept our home form going and created a new record with our 12th straight win in all competitions, aswell as another clean sheet and John Terry moved above Dennis Wise into second in the record books for the amount of games he has captained the side.

Out jumping Adebayor, this Serbian has some ups...
Our Funny Feeling Friday selection this week is Serb Branislav Ivanovic. The 25 year old Chelsea defender is in excellent form this season, and has proven to be a capable right back in the absence of Jose Bosingwa (and his unibrow) to injury.

Here are our three players to watch well in fact to sign to see you through the Christmas period. As ever, we make no promises that this will turn out well. And we appreciate the lack of imagination that seemingly lies behind these picks; but points mean prizes...

1. Andrei Arshavin

Over the next four gameweeks (assuming you play the FPL and are familiar with that parlance) Arsenal play Burnley, Hull, Villa and then joy of joys have a double header, with Portsmouth and Bolton both on the week's menu.

Chelsea are back to their three point lead over contenders Manchester United as they defeated Portsmouth 2-1 in a Premier League encounter last night. The Blues now sit pretty at 40 points with United at 37 with both having played 17 games. After Chelsea's draw over the weekend and Man U's win over the Wolves [.

If he's good enough for her, he's good enough for me
Our Funny Feeling Friday selection this weekend is Fulham's Bobby Zamora. You might think we're crazy - as Fulham take on Manchester United, but we're pretty confident with this choice, coming off the back of four straight successful Funny Feelings - (Lee Chung-Yong, Branislav Ivanovic, Lee Bowyer, and Guille Franco).

UPDATE: According to Simon Johnson at the London Evening Standard, Chelsea are prepared to offer defender Branislav Ivanovic a new deal next summer. Ivanovic only has one year left on his deal after this season and Chelsea are looking to make him an offer to prevent other clubs from talking to him, like Real Madrid.

La Liga giants pursue much improved Blues defender.

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Serbia coach Radomir Antic believes Branislav Ivanovic would be an ideal signing for Real Madrid.

Spanish media has tabbed several players including: Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic with Sergio Canales of Racing Santander, Cleiton Xavier of Brazilian side Palmeiras and Benfica's Brazilian player David Luiz also speculated as replacements.