Chelseafc.com continues a look back over another eventful year at the club with the words reported at the time. Away from home points start to slip.

If Chelsea were flawed at home, there were few more likely to know how to exploit that tactically than Steve Clarke. He and Gianfranco Zola brought West Ham to Stamford Bridge for a game in mid-December.

Chelsea had achieved the double over the Hammers in the last three seasons, with an aggregate of 17 goals to three, but this afternoon was to be different.

Lampard returned with Deco moving wider and Anelka retained his place with Drogba, available again after his three-match domestic ban, on the bench.

It took Chelsea until just before half-time to force Robert Green to make his first save, by which time Craig Bellamy's well-taken goal had put us in arrears.

Anelka finished coolly after Lampard's brilliantly-weighted lob over the defence to equalise. Half-time sub Drogba had been involved with a muscular lay-off to Lamps.

Late in the game Green punched onto his own crossbar and then three minutes from time Lucas Neill appeared to foul Lampard in the box but the ref did not spot the contact. That might have been injustice but again Chelsea lacked an edge at home and indeed needed a full-length save by Cech from Carlton Cole to prevent the Hammers nicking it.

We had now dropped 14 home points but remained second on a strange weekend of draws all-round for the title challengers.

Chelsea 1-1 West Ham at Stamford Bridge on 14-12-2008
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Bosingwa, Alex, Terry (c), A Cole; Mikel (Belletti 78); J Cole (Kalou 74), Ballack (Drogba h-t), Lampard, Deco; Anelka.
Scorers Anelka 50
Booked Mikel 20, Ballack 32, A Cole 36.
West Ham (4-1-2-1-2): Green; Neill (c), Davenport, Upson, Ilunga; Parker; Behrami, Collison (Boa Morte 86); Noble (Mullins 71); Bellamy (Di Michele 90+3), Cole.
Goal Bellamy 32
Booked Cole 39.



'It's hard to explain because you can see the effort and the way we try to break the opponents down,' said Cech in the aftermath.

'The early goal is key. We have been doing that away from home and that has made the games slightly easier. But it is disappointing because we have already had two chances to go top.'

For Scolari there was pain on more than one front as he was afflicted by kidney stones, the same week the same aliment struck Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez.

'The thinking now is that the full backs provide that attacking width and of course there are few better than Ashley Cole and José Bosingwa in that area, but it can have a down side,' analysed Pat Nevin on Chelseafc.com in the week that followed.

'It can push most of the rest of the team into more central positions and that of course means that area is even more cramped. We have two wide players available in Florent Malouda and Joe Cole, but Joe loves to drift infield, which he has done over the years to devastating effect.

'We may however need to rethink positioning, it was made very clear in an article in Monday morning's Times newspaper when they tracked the average positions of all the Chelsea players.

'By the end of the game the average positions taken up by Deco, Lampard, Anelka, Cole, Mikel and Drogba were within a 25-yard radius.'

'If you had to hand a point to someone, over the course of a season, I suspect Gianfranco Zola would be the person you would chose to hand it to,' was an alternative view by columnist Giles Smith. 'It's just a shame that West Ham get to share it as well,' he added.



The final game before Christmas was away to Everton.

'And so we enter the compact Christmas period of three games in seven days two points behind Liverpool, three ahead of Aston Villa, five above Manchester United, and six away from Arsenal, who have played a game more,' observed the Pre-Match Briefing.

It was a Christmas period with one less fixture than in recent times and Chelsea would have been eyeing up a maximum points haul from the trip to Goodison, a match at home to bottom club West Brom and a visit to Craven Cottage.

The fact we finally dropped points away from home, and against an Everton side with the worst home record in the league as well, would have raised more alarm bells had it not been for John Terry's first-half red card. It took a man of the match performance by Cech to keep the game goalless.

Liverpool had drawn with Arsenal the day before so the real winners were Man United who watched their rivals fail to make headway while they were the other side of the globe contesting the World Club Championship.

Everton 0-0 Chelsea at Goodison Park on 22-12-2008
Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Bosingwa, Alex, Terry (c), A Cole; Mikel; J Cole (Ivanovic h-t), Ballack, Lampard, Deco (Bridge 87); Anelka (Drogba h-t).
Sent-off Terry 34
Booked Lampard 42, A Cole 42, Ballack 67.
Everton (4-4-1-1): Howard; Hibbert, Yobo (Baines 60), Jagielka, Lescott; Osman, Neville (c), Arteta, Pienaar; Fellaini, Cahill.

Scolari, allowing himself a cooling down period, did not give his views immediately after the game. No-one from Chelsea spoke on the night. Instead the manager waited for a Chelsea TV interview a day later.

'At that time I was angry and disappointed with something on the pitch and if I went to say something, maybe I say something wrong,' he explained.

'I needed more time for thinking, to look at everything in the game again.

'But I don't change my opinion about yesterday. I've looked at all the game again and some moments many times, and I don't change.'

That included his thoughts on John Terry's first-half dismissal.



'I say the same as I think yesterday. For me it is not normal.'

Ivanovic came in for the suspended captain for the visit of West Brom on Boxing Day. Deco, now looking a shadow of the player who began the season, not helped by niggling injuries, was dropped while in an attempt to raise potency up front, Drogba and
Anelka both started with Anelka wide left and Joe Cole on the right flank. Ashley Cole made his 100th Chelsea appearance.

The lowly Baggies were welcome opposition as the Blues went hunting for a first home win since the first day of November. Against a side set up to defend, a Drogba header in the third minute quickly ended the visitors' hopes of taking anything back to the Midlands.

Lampard's deft clip at the end of the first half secured the points and ended his own 10-game spell without a goal. He had been performing admirably yet it was his longest run off the scoresheet since the 2003/04 season.

'When I score after not scoring for a while, I do tend to go on a bit of a run and it will be a good time to do that with Fulham coming up and Man United in the new year,' the player told Chelseafc.com afterwards, before warning:

'It will always be a difficult game for us with Fulham being local rivals. Regardless of their form in the past, they gave us tough games and at the moment they are getting very good results because they are very organised.'



Chelsea 2-0 West Brom at Stamford Bridge on 26-12-2008
Chelsea (4-3-3): Cech; Bosingwa( Belletti h-t), Alex, Ivanovic, A Cole; Ballack, Mikel, Lampard (c); J Cole (Deco 78), Drogba (Malouda 66), Anelka.
Goals Drogba 3, Lampard 45+1
Booked Ballack 73
West Brom (4-5-1): Carson; Zuiverloon, Meité (Barnett 26), Olsson, Robinson; Morrison, Kim, Greening (c), Koren, Brunt; Beattie (Moore 59).
Booked None

Leaders Liverpool plus Man United won their Boxing Day games but Arsenal threw away a two-goal lead at Aston Villa to draw a third game in a row. The Gunners continued to trail Villa by three points.



For Chelsea's final match of 2008 and the second match in three days, midfield rotation saw Deco come in for Ballack and Malouda replace Nicolas Anelka.

There was the pleasing sight of Ricardo Carvalho involved for the first time in two months. He was on the bench.

Lampard's pre-match thoughts on our visit to Craven Cottage proved spot on as he found the net twice - but the day still ended badly.

His first goal was an equaliser when keeper Mark Schwarzer and Aaron Hughes failed to clear the ball after Drogba broke into the box. The second was a free-kick driven in hard but Fulham made it 2-2 right at the death. Both goals conceded had come from set-pieces.



Fulham 2-2 Chelsea at Craven Cottage on 28-12-2008
Chelsea (4-3-3): Cech; Bosingwa, Alex (Carvalho 35), Ivanovic, A Cole; Deco, Mikel, Lampard (c), J Cole (Kalou 71), Drogba, Malouda (Anelka 29).
Scorer Lampard 49, 73.
Booked Drogba 81, Bosingwa 90+1.
Fulham (4-4-2): Schwarzer; Paintsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky; Dempsey, Murphy (c) (Baird 90+2), Etuhu (Andreasen 78), Davies; Zamora (Nevland 77), Johnson.
Scorer Dempsey 10, 89.
Booked Dempsey 90.

Despite negotiating 2008 unbeaten away in league matches, no-one was happy.

'We have been very good defending the balls from free kicks and corner kicks this season but today no,' Scolari said with regret.

'Any player at the start of the game knows who they need to mark. It is my job now to look and ask what happened in these situations.



'Petr [Cech] is the captain for this area and I give to Petr the power to say this or that and I ask him what has happened,' he explained, 'because one player in the middle of the area free in the last minute, it is incredible.

'We won one point at Everton, we lost two points today.'

There was no New Year's Day game so it was the start of the FA Cup campaign next, and a morale-boosting home win against League One Southend was on order. However…

To be continued…