"Oh what fun it is to see the Gooners lose away" (Priesty)

With all due respect to Ruud, I haven't seen a Chelsea performance like this since well before Christmas. It's been a long time coming, but what a way to break the Sky TV jinx. It's been a constant irritation that, if my memory serves me well, we've only won ONE of the games that have been shown live on Sky this season, and we generally get turned over horribly when Andy Gray and his band of merry men show up.

Last night was very different. We arrived in our Shed Upper seats at 7:30 for a 7:45 kickoff to find that Chelsea had given the entire West Stand over to the gooner mob for the night. Very generous, given the sort of ticket allocation we tend to get for big games. The atmosphere seemed to be fairly subdued, so we did our best to encourage the crowd around us with tuneless chanting and friendly taunting of the gooner swine, who were standing around with their hands in their pockets, looking like they were waiting for a bus. It would have been better for them if they had taken the number 14 in the general direction of away, as it was to turn out.

The atmosphere underwent the usual miraculous transformation during the 10 minutes before kickoff, and the adrenalin rush when the whistle blew took some beating - you can keep your disco biscuits and your marching powder. Within two minutes it was obvious that this was a transformed side we were watching. The confidence and self-belief that had been so obviously lacking for the last two months was back, with a vengeance. The main difference was that you could plainly see that the team were working for each other, and were playing with PASSION, something that's been badly lacking recently. The commitment was absolute, and it seemed obvious to me that we were watching the rebirth of the team. If Ruud had to go, replacing him with Vialli seems to have been a master-stroke, if you judge by the way the team played for Vialli last night. I know it's far too early to go around making rash statements like that, but the evidence is there that the team are happy, and you can't argue with that.

The tactics were exemplary, and consisted of lulling Arsenal into a false sense of security by deliberately losing the last three games against them, and then, when it really mattered, producing the sort of display you usually only see from Chelsea at Old Trafford. They basically did to Arsenal what they did to us in the first leg, chasing every ball, tackling ferociously and not giving the swine a chance to settle into any sort of rhythm. By God, it was a pleasure to watch. You could see the surprise on the gooners' faces as Chelsea steamrollered over them. It was awe-insipiring: we laughed, we cried, it was better than "Cats".

The formation of Vialli, Hughes and Zola up front was causing Arsenal problems from the start. Mark Hughes looked dangerous, and was winning balls consistently, laying off to Vialli and Zola to create chances. The famed Arsenal defence looked pretty ordinary, and were resorting to kicking players if they couldn't get the ball. It was no real surprise when Chelsea took the lead after 10 minutes, after Zola's free kick eventually reached Hughes, who turned and shot powerfully and low past Manninger into the corner of the net. Cue thunderous celebration, insane glee, etc. What a moment, made even sweeter by the surly expressions on the faces of the gooner mob, who were obviously in shock.

Defensively, Chelsea looked the part for a change, with Duberry and Leboeuf looking as solid as I've ever seen. It was magnificent, really. Bergkamp, Anelka and Overmars were reduced to bit players by our back four. Chelsea survived the rest of the half easily, although the game did degenerate into a competition to see who could stay out of ref Graham Poll's notebook. I lost count of the bookings in the end, but I'm pretty sure most of both teams ended uo in there. Petit, the "cultured" French midfielder, distinguished himself by appearing to be invisible to the ref, thereby giving him carte blanche to commit ferocious atrocities without fear of redress. How he stayed on the field is beyond me.

Vieira, on the other hand, was definitely visible, and was rightly sent off a few minutes into the second half when he scythed Graeme Le Saux down with no pretence of going for the ball. He'd already been booked, and was bang to rights, so why the gooner swine made such a fuss is beyond belief. They over-reacted to the point where the Old Bill had to get between them and the pitch, but it didn't stop them from throwing all manner of crap at Zola and Le Saux - don't they know there's a Ģ1,000 fine for littering in Hammersmith and Fulham ? How we laughed.

Realistically, Arsenal kissed any chance of pulling the game back after that, Chelsea had already been playing as though they were a man up, so when we scored again three minutes later all doubt that we were going to win was removed.

Vialli had been horribly fouled, but not given a free kick, which seemed to distract the Arsenal defence. Robbie Di Matteo robbed the ball off one of them, I couldn't see who, and charged towards the goal, unleashing a shot on the run that smashed into the top right hand corner of the net, leaving Manninger standing. It was very similar to the 43-second Cup Final goal, and produced similar celebrations from us all. We were still dancing around two minutes later, and almost missed Dan Petrescu's well taken goal past the unsighted Manninger. On any other day it would have been goal of the match, the skill with which he took the ball past two defenders and shot with the outside of his boot was tremendous. Poor old Dan's been looking a bit shellshocked lately, last night he seemed to have shaken it off.

Needless to say, we were all delirious by this point, the only worrying thing was that we had to get through another 35 minutes without screwing up, bud I needn't have worried. Chelsea kept up the concentration and passion until the end, although it got a bit ragged in the last ten minutes. Arsenal got an extremely dubious penalty for hand ball after Duberry had fallen while tackling Bergkamp. The ball may have hit his shoulder area, but I was looking at the linesman, who was five yards way, and he put both hands behind his back, which, if I'm not mistaken, means that he saw no infringement either. Graham Poll, who was at least twenty yards away on the blind side, decided to award the penalty, however.

It would be churlish to make too much of a fuss about whether it was a penalty or not, but I'd say we had a better claim on the stroke of half time when Di Matteo, I think, was hacked down in the area. That's the way it goes, I suppose. It didn't matter in the end. The boys are back at Wembley with a vengeance.

To sum up, this was the best party since the Cup Final, and if the spirit and commitment the boys showed last night keeps up, we are a match for any team in the land. Let's hope it does keep up, and that we can carry it over into the more ordinary atmosphere of the Premiership.

Men of the match: Duberry and Leboeuf, for so effectively neutralising Bergkamp and co.

Bring on the Boro' !