"What a difference three days makes.."

We were going to win, and win well. That's the ludicrous conclusion I came to after a couple of pints of Ireland's finest before the match. I even forecast that Luca would get two, not even knowing if he'd be playing ! Frightening what drink can do, isn't it ?

When we got there, we were pleased to find ourselves in row five, gate two of Shed Upper, which meant that we were approximately 20 yards from the goal on one side, and 30 yards from the Palace lot in the East Stand, easily close enough to feel right in the thick of it. We could see the bovine expressions on the faces of the Palace mob clearly, and even make out some of the mindless chanting. I thought Barnsley fans were living in cloud cuckoo land, but that was before I heard the Palace lot...

The match kicked off to the accompaniment of volleys of insults being traded between the more moronic followers of both teams (me included, I'm afraid), all the usual stuff like "You're going down with the Tottenham" from us, "We support a local team" from them - which I thought was a bit rich, seeing as a good third of their team are foreign - plus some vigourous gesturing from the blokes in front of us, which resulted in one of them being unceremoniously hauled out of his seat by a steward for a good ticking off. The steward let him sit back down again after loudly telling him that "they may very well be a load of w*****s, but you're not allowed to tell them", which got a good laugh from me.

On the field, meanwhile, things were looking pretty dicey for Chelsea. On one of Palace's forays their "local" Icelander, Hreidarsson, volleyed a fluffed clearance home from the edge of the box through a crowd of players. The Palace lot went mental, taunting us mercilessly, which is not surprising, seeing as they hadn't scored for almost as long as us. I just bided my time, because it was obvious that the goal was, shall we say, fortunate. The writing was on the wall, and it said "your defence looks worse than ours, it won't be long before we get one back."

Sure enough, seven minutes later Chelsea equalised through Luca Vialli's volley from Zola's corner - a pathetically easy goal, really, Steve Coppell must have been cursing. He was cursing even worse a few minutes later when Zola latched onto a high ball over the top that bounced unexpectedly, and steered it past Palace keeper Miller for number two.

Things quietened down after that, with Palace pushing men up to try for the equaliser. They did get the ball in the net just before half time, but the goal was disallowed for offside. How we crowed when the Palace lot realised. The icing splattered onto the cake when Luca bagged his second bang on half time. Franco Zola put Vialli through with a perfectly weighted pass, leaving only Miller to beat. The keeper got a hand to the ball, but Vialli had time to turn round, collect the ball and stroke it into the net. 3-1, and looking like more. The bovril never tasted sweeter at half time.

Don't get the idea that Chelsea had everything their own way, though. We were all biting our nails at various points during the second half, as Palace gamely tried for more goals. Their defence let them down, though. They were truly awful, much worse than Chelsea's ever is. The time the forwards were getting on the ball was incredible by Premiership standards. After some scary moments for both teams, Palace, incredibly, stuck on two attackers, the "local" foreigners, Jansen and Lombardo. It wasn't long before Chelsea benefitted from from it, when Dennis Wise sprung the weak offside trap and had an age to place his shot wide of Miller.

We kept attacking, as I imagine players could see their goal averages improving with ease, and it wasn't long before we in turn paid for it, when the amusingly-named Bent scored on the break. The few Palace fans who hadn't cleared off home raised an ironic cheer. Unfortunately for them, Rixy subbed Vialli and brought on Flo, who scored two of the easiest goals he'll ever collect in the last few minutes. I couldn't see the first one properly, as there were too many players in the way, but it looked like he got to a cross before anyone else. The second was when he ran on to another offside trap-beating pass and had plenty of time to dribble the ball past poor old Miller. We should have had ten, and would have done but for Miller, who made some excellent saves, but all in all it was an entertaining game to watch, so who's complaining ?

Worthy of mention:
Franco Zola, who looked more like a top player, and was taking on and beating players;
Vialli, who had an excellent game when he was playing in the traditional centre-forward role, but lost it later on when he started ball-chasing;
Leboeuf, solid as ever;
Morris, who was busy and tried hard.

On the down side: I'm sorry to say that Clarkey appeared to me to be having a bit of an off day, along with Eddie Newton. Even Mad Frankie was quiet. Kharine made one good save, but wasn't called on to do much else. The rest didn't really catch my eye, but to be fair, there were quite a lot of distractions. You can't complain after winning 6-2. Nice one, boys, keep up the momentum and we'll be laughing.