Didn’t expect that last night to be honest, either in terms of the result or the choice of squad but then it was always going to be an interesting night with Hilarious in goal three right-backs and a left-back.

Despite all the pre-match talk about fielding a strong first team, Ancelotti had made wholesale changes, with no Terry, Carvalho, Lampard, Essien, Anelka and Didier Drogba the only senior player on the bench.

A bit hard to go into too much detail about the game seeing as there seemed to be an almost complete blanket ban on anyone having access to it unless they were prepared to get up to Ewood Park for it.

Still, from how it sounded, our defence was the sort of confused backline you’d have expected seeing as the four of them have probably said little more than a casual hello to each other in terms of preparation and it wasn’t long before we were a goal behind. Kalou missed the obligatory sitter, so we went into the break a goal behind.

Cue Didier Drogba after the break to add a bit of attack to our game and he duly obliged within about two minutes to level the score. Just four minutes later, the Ivorian turned provider for Salomon Kalou and we found ourselves on top. Unfortunately, it all sounded a bit physical with our players going down all over the place. First Kakuta took a bang on the head and went off temporarily, Kalou wasn’t so lucky and went off with about twenty minutes remain. This time, our player didn’t re-emerge and having made 3 subs already, Carlo Ancelotti had nowhere to go in terms of a replacement.

Hilarious did his worst with what sounded like a complete nightmare to concede the equaliser and how we ever hung on for extra time is anyone’s guess. But, hang on we did and despite conceding a penalty right at the start of that, with Hilario sent the wrong way by McCarthy, we still managed to hold on right until the dying minutes before Paulo Ferreira took it to penalties with his equaliser.

I hate penalty shoot-outs, I hate going out of a game on penalties but last night was different. I think it had to be said that whatever the outcome, our players had given it everything they had – and Ancelotti will have learnt some valuable lessons.

So anyway, onto the penalties – and sadly they went like this:

McCarthy – in

Ballack – saved

Emerton – in

Drogba – in

Grella – in

Malouda – in

Kalinic – saved

Zhirkov – in

Hoilett – in

Kakuta – saved

TEAMS

BLACKBURN: Robinson, Salgado, Samba, Nelsen, Chimbonda, Emerton, Nzonzi, Pedersen, McCarthy, Roberts, Kalinic
Subs: Brown, Givet, Grella, Diouf, Van Heerden, Hoilett, Jones.
CHELSEA: Hilario, Belletti, Ivanovic, Paulo Ferreira, Zhirkov, Mikel, Ballack,Deco, Joe Cole, Kalou, Malouda.
Subs: Turnbull, Drogba, Matic,Hutchinson, Bruma, Kakuta, Borini.

Filed under: Domestic Cups, Match report