(Nothing from Beaker yet..)

"A glimmer of sunshine.." (Priesty)

I couldn't muster my usual absurd level of optimism before this match, given the past few performances. As usual with Chelsea, though, the boys can be relied on to make fools of anyone who dares to predict the outcome of a match based on form, team selection, venue, etc. You may say that Chelsea had no chance of losing to a team like Barnsley, and in the event you'd have been proved right, but as every Chelsea fan knows, making assumptions like that can result in cruel disappointment.

With that in mind, and given that Barnsley can play confident and attractive attacking football, I admit to having had just the smallest of doubts in the back of my mind as I took my seat in the Shed Upper. They soon evaporated, though, as the magic of being at the Bridge took over.

I was pleased to see Luca Vialli get a start, but not surprised, remembering his hatful the last time we played Barnsley. Similarly I was disappointed not to see Franco Zola in the side. His and Eddie Newton's indifferent form recently go a long way to explaining the reason's for Chelsea's slump in the past few weeks. There are other factors, significantly Dennis Wise and Robbie Di Matteo being in and out of the side, plus the obvious lack of confidence displayed by the team.

Seeing Dennis Wise on the pitch gave not only us fans, but also the team a great boost, and he proceeded to remind us just how sorely he's missed when he's not around. The international stars tend to take the limelight from him, but make no mistake, he is the hub of the team.

From the start it was obvious that the mood of the side had changed, the passing was crisper and more confident, the communication between the players was vastly better, and they all seemed to be concentrating much harder than of late. The attacks were going in thick and fast, with Vialli looking particulalry dangerous with his intelligent running (can you have intelligent running ??). After Chelsea had narrowly failed to score for the fourth or fifth time, the Barnsley fans decided to start chanting: "You're not very good" at us, displaying an ostrich-like refusal to participate in the real world, given their position in the league. You have to hand it to them, though, for showing the sort of blind optimism in the face of defeat that regular followers of Chelsea know so well !

Mark Hughes missed a great chance from a cross from the increasingly bad-tempered Graeme Le Saux (who wouldn't be, given the sort of crap he has to put up with from away supporters with the mental development of a tadpole), and Beefy had one of his trademark thunderbolts superbly palmed away by Watson, who then bravely smothered the follow-up from (I think) Petrescu - I couldn't see due to the bloke in front standing on his seat; thanks a bunch. It wasn't long before Vialli toe-poked the inevitable goal, and we settled down to watch the rout. We were still waiting when the half time whistle went, it was more luck than anything else that we didn't score again.

The supreme moment came when Le Saux put in a cross which Petrescu rose to spectacularly head against the post, followed by some great football from Vialli from the rebound, who managed to lay the ball off for Den to shoot weakly straight at the keeper - he'll never get a better chance than that.

As usual, the half time Bovril inspired the sort of optimism that I'd been lacking at the start, (what do they put in it ?) and I couldn't wait for the second half.

You can rely on the occasional tannoy announcement to cause some hilarity, there's always a couple of plaintive calls informing errant husbands that their wives have gone into labour, (typical thoughtlessness to sprog in the middle of a match - they do it on purpose!) but one of the ones on Saturday was the best yet: "Can Mr. So-and-so please return home IMMEDIATELY - your wife is locked out" You can imagine the reaction of the crowd..

So it was with increasing good humour that we saw Chelsea continue their siege of Barnsley's defence, with some good movement and passing, culminating in Hughesey's contentious goal. The contentiousness centred around Barnsley's claim for offside against Petrescu, who had walked onto a superb defence-splitting ball from Luca Vialli. I can't tell you whether it was offside or not, as I was miles away behind the opposite goal, but Barnsley obviously thought so, they all stopped and put their hands up. The lineswoman (yes, woman) was having none of it. Dan crossed perfectly for Hughes to nod the ball past Watson, who stood on his line applauding the lineswoman - how we laughed.

That was pretty much it in terms of excitement, although Barnsley did manage a few desultory attacks, the majority of which broke down weakly before the ball had got into Chelsea's area. Our man de Goey had to make two saves during the match, both excellent, proving that he's finally found his form. It can't be easy to have to stay awake for 60 minutes doing absolutely nothing, and then to have to make a save of the highest calibre from nothing. His quick distribution is also excellent, as soon as he gets the ball you can see the players' expectation of a quick delivery. We very nearly caught Barnsley on the hop from one of those, it's a good weapon to have in your armoury. It'll be interesting to see how Kharine or Hitchcock will fare when de Goey leaves to play for Holland.

Finally, the referee, Mr. J.T. Winter. I've seen some bad decisions from referees in the past (who will ever forget the second "penalty" in the 1994 Cup Final) but rarely have I seen such a baffling display as the one we were treated to on Saturday. The guy was booking people for what looked like perfectly good tackles, ignoring blatant clogging, and generally behaving like a an officious school teacher on acid. (Thinking about it, that's a perfect description of Elleray, too!). This madness culminated in the absurd booking of Laurent Charvet, who had a good game, for "not handing the ball over properly" from a throw in ! He also booked both Petrescu and a Barnsley player (I think it was Chelsea reject Darren Barnard) for "cheating", I assume he meant for diving. Neither looked like dives to me. Danny Wilson and the Barnsley backroom boys were going mental, some of the decisions that went against them were hard to understand. At least they only had two booked, though.

The last twenty minutes of the match were used up by Barnsley alternately attacking Chelsea's goal and complaining about the referee's weird decisions. I had thought that the ref in the Arsenal game was bad, but I now realise that he's a genius. At least he let the game flow.

Nice to see Chelsea back in the top two again, superb result at United by Leicester, and thanks Liverpool and Blackburn for the draw. Nice one.