At 3-1 the Chelsea fans were singing, “Martin, Martin, give us a wave!”
Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill did not oblige.
Chelsea were giving an exhibition of slick passing, automatic support running, and clinical finishing.
At 4-1 the Blues fans were singing, “Champions League? You’re having a laugh! Champions League? You’re having a laugh!”
At 5-1 it was a massacre.
Then we saw on the big screen that Arsenal had scored at Birmingham.
The score caption came along the big screen slowly from right to left.
“Arsenal have scored,” said my friend Rob, in case I had not seen the screen.
“It’s not over yet,” I replied.
At 6-1 it was a festival.
This was the Chelsea machine clicking back into gear 11 days after the hammer-blow delivered by Inter Milan and Jose Mourinho.
Chelsea, even without Essien, Ashley Cole and Drogba, were once again a big blue juggernaut.
When it went to 7-1, I wondered whether I was watching champions.
Playing slick football like this, could Chelsea go to Old Trafford next Saturday and beat Manchester United?
After all, United are in Germany in midweek, while Chelsea have a rest. But would Man United allow Chelsea to play like this? Definitely not.
The final whistle went and we were surrounded by noise and laughing faces. As we were moving slowly down the steps towards the exit, the score caption came slowly along the big screen.
It said BIRM. The caption is so bloody slow! It said BIRMING…..Come on! I was thinking.
Then I saw BIRMINGHAM 1. There was a huge cheer as the final score ticked into view: BIRMINGHAM 1 ARSENAL 1
When the game kicked off, it took me a minute or two to realise that Ballack wasn’t playing. Deco was there with Joe Cole on the right. Drogba was on the bench, having been injured in the 5-0 win at Portsmouth.
MALOUDA was positive, two-footed, incisive, very hard-working and confident.
Malouda isn’t a flair player like Arjen Robben or Ronaldinho.
Like Lampard, Malouda is a technician who plays in the team and for the team and with the team.
As a winger, Malouda is a technician. As a playmaker, he’s a technician. As a finisher, he’s a two-footed technician.
He made the first goal with a cross beyond the far post that Lampard converted.
Then Carew equalised, touching in Ashley Young’s fast cross at the far post.
Lampard has been average-to-invisible recently but the team selection suited him. No Drogba, no Ballack, Deco sitting, Anelka playing deep.
Balance can be elusive in a team of big names but the balance here gave Chelsea a lot of what Kaka calls “automatic” and that really suited Lampard.
With Anelka deep, Lampard ran into scoring positions all day long. That’s his game and he had scored 147 goals for Chelsea in nine seasons doing that. Now he has scored 151.
I knew Anelka wouldn’t score. Chelsea won 7-1 without Drogba and Anelka didn’t score a goal. With Drogba they hit the ball longer, rather than passing it around with one and two touches.
Here the team played very well and Anelka joined in, while rarely going into the box. He nodded one ball to Zhirkov, who won a penalty, then turned twice to set up Kalou to hit the seventh.
We figured it would go that way.
Before the game, after the warm-up, my pal Rob said, “Lampard will play further forward.”
“It’s down to Frank and Malouda to score the goals today,” I said.
We all say a lot of things before games, and during games, and some of what we say turns out to be right. This was one of those days when we got it right. But, of course, I only expected 2-1 or 3-1.
Malouda scored two and Lampard scored four, including two penalties, which he took beautifully. Both were stonewall pens for fouls on Zhirkov by Collins and Dunn.
After the game SuperFrankie said, “You can never do anything unless your teammates are playing well around you.”
That wasn’t false modesty. That was the truth. He scored four goals because Chelsea’s automatic passing gave him the chances to score four goals.