It was the best crowd this season thanks to nigh on 4K Blues fans colonising our North stand and going by a packed Upper West concourse with 45 minutes to go (which is normally sparse at that time before kick off) the kitchen staff
must have been flying food out at a rate of knots because the queues never seemed to stop. A lot of new fans wandered about and easy to spot with their half and half scarves from the bloke on the West Park walkway who will have no doubt made a small fortune.
They seemed to be everywhere.

One "new to the stadium" couple was that excited, they read the block numbers above the entrance to the seating, they quickly marched straight down the Gents corridor adjacent and I just managed to rescue the ladies blushes before
they got too far in.

The stadium, cold and damp was a hive of energy. A media circus with presenters, cameramen, press and technicians everywhere as the players warmed up with an early appearance to the tech area from Rosenior as he likes to watch his
side during this process.

Of course the man in his element was the TV Mogul himself, Acun Illicali who flitted from microphone to microphone to Sky TV pitch side interview desk sporting an impressive tan and as always, a mile wide smile.

Without the benefit of seeing any highlights, TV coverage or other comments...Onto the game, I was happy with the Squad focussed line up which had a spattering of first 11 and also a mix of bench players and more than happy to see
Dillon Phillips between the sticks as IMO, he earned the right for tonight's call up, based on his 3rd round performance against Blackburn.

A good choice to rest Oli and Charlie as our main stays of the main event which is our league campaign and no reason at all to risk injury.

City out the blocks from the off and gave a good account of ourselves. On the front foot and we took the game to Chelsea carving ourselves a few good half chances with Giles and Miller working well. As Usual, Slater the busy bee
and thought our defence looked competent.

Chelsea came across as a relaxed and sat back soaking up what we had to throw at them with one or two scares at both ends which came to nothing BUT, as the first half went on it was obvious they were a slow burning fuse.

Phillips was superb in the first half. Really alert but the biggest positive was his ability to re ignite the game from a save or collection at every opportunity. In fact sometimes he was ready to launch a long throw or kick but
the outfield were too slow to react. His distribution was first class.

Quick and accurate with one minor faux pas of a late clearance that Delap closed down and the ball spun wildly of his interception, onto our bar and down onto the goal line before Delap pounced on it again but this time Phillips
saved his fall from grace with a great one handed stretch to fluff Delap's shot and took the ball from his boot.

But the inevitable happened and it was always going to be something special. At about 20 minutes in, The MKM became a snow globe A veil of white powder swirling all over the pitch and well into the back of the stands. Rosenior had
seen enough of what he needed to do and gave us a lesson in his much improved "Playing out from the back" philosophy.

Given that the "Back" was Chelsea's centre backs, Fofana and Sarr and had now made base camp 10 yards into our own half, all 10 of their outfield played much of the last 25 minutes in their final third and the "playing across the
back" was in effect, playing across our side of the centre circle. And then it came. City, bogged down and overwhelmed Neto powered a drive from outside the box to Phillips left hand side out of reach of a late dive.

That's about as good as it got for City from then on. 6 minutes after the restart, Neto popped up again with a strike from a corner and just 8 minutes later Estêvão joined the party to put them 3-0 up without reply.

The engineer? The man who we know very well what he's capable of. Liam Delap who got a hat trick of assists.

Chelsea hadn't moved into second gear all night and had City running around in confusion all second half and to be fair it was almost a training exercise for Chelsea in Pass and Move. They carved us apart like a prize turkey and
gave us a very harsh insight as to the chasm in quality between the Championship and the Premiership and especially a top 5 team in the Premiership which is where the Blues currently sit.

Fair play to little Hirakawa tonight. Despite all the effort in the world he's far too lightweight for the size and bulk of Chelsea players and with the best will in the world, and although he tried on 3 or 4 occasions, his 5'8"
stature and 56" long stride pattern was never going to trouble a 6' Jorrel Hato with his 62" ground clearance on the run.

YU, is far better in space and needs to learn to release the ball sooner when he starts getting closed down but his tenacity is faultless.

All in all, a good night out under the lights, expected a beating although not a 4 - 0 one but it was a good yard stick for where we are.

The quality in ££££ was evident at the end of the day.

City = Player MV £57M.

Chelsea = Player MV £1 BILLION.

Now we can put all this cup interest away till next season and get back to the bread and butter. Pleased for Acun to get a shot at hobnobbing with the glitz and glam of high profile football, the club must have made a stack of revenue
to put in our war chest and the new half and half scarf wearing supporters will get a taste of how it could be with them adding to the extra 3000 bums on seats required at every home game to make it a sell out.

Sadly there was an incident or two that marred the game tonight and was very disappointed to hear 2 crowd warnings of a discriminatory nature which the club and authorities are dealing with.

Onwards and upwards. UTT.