El-Hadji Diouf's second-half header earned Blackburn a 1-1 draw as
Chelsea's Premier League title aspirations hit the buffers at Ewood
Park.
A match that seemed there for the taking on Sunday after
Didier Drogba's early goal somehow drifted out of Chelsea's grasp.
Diouf headed a superb equaliser as Blackburn put in such a
powerful second-half performance that keeper Jason Brown was barely
tested.
For Chelsea, whose record in their past nine matches is now
four wins, four defeats and one draw, this was hardly a display of
title-winning credentials and they are now four points behind
Manchester United and two behind Arsenal, though with a game in
hand.
This was underlined by the fact that the clear man of the
match was none other than Rovers' 18-year-old central defender Phil
Jones, making his league debut and up against Drogba and Nicolas
Anelka.
Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce had gambled on him in the
absence of Ryan Nelsen and Gael Givet.
That gamble may have seen rash as Drogba carved out an early
chance for himself, dinking a neat curling shot just wide of the
post despite being surrounded by a posse of defenders.
That was just a foretaste of what was to come as the Ivory
Coast striker opened the scoring in the sixth minute with an almost
effortless simplicity.
Anelka burst down the right, cut inside Jones and laid the
ball back for Drogba to wrong-foot the entire Rovers defence and
keeper Jason Brown with a neat left-footed finish back into the
opposite corner.
Kalou threatened to further emphasise Chelsea's early
dominance with a header from a corner that flew over the crossbar
but from then on it was downhill for the visitors.
David Dunn won a free-kick in Morten Gamst Pedersen range
after being halted by an agricultural challenge by Alex, but
although the Norwegian was on target Chelsea keeper Ross Turnbull
turned his effort behind.
Pedersen had another sight of goal but was wildly off-target
with his volley, while Jones drew the loudest cheers from the
Rovers fans so far with a series of crunching - but legal -
challenges as Blackburn did their best to out-power the visitors.
Florent Malouda let fly from 20 yards out with a stinging
drive but Brown managed to parry the shot, if somewhat
unconvincingly.
Carlo Ancelotti was then forced to make a change just before
the break with Branislav Ivanovic, who appeared to have been stood
on unintentionally by El Hadji Diouf, limped off to be replaced by
Zhirkov.
Blackburn, as if scenting that Chelsea may have missed a
trick by scoring just a single goal in the first half, upped the
tempo in the second.
Zhirkov's first involvement for Chelsea, right at the start
of the second half was to head off the line after Chris Samba had
beaten the flapping Turnbull to Pedersen's long throw.
Pedersen was then left cursing again when given space to
shoot from 25 yards out but missing the target by some margin.
Frank Lampard, who had been having a quiet game by his
standards, was much closer with a rising effort from the same range
that was a whisker away from the top right-hand corner.
The suspicion that Chelsea had seemed over-confident in
settling for a 1-0 win had been growing the longer the second half
went on, and in the 70th minute Diouf made them pay.
The Senegal international hung in the air above Ferreira to
meet Michel Salgado's cross with a superb header down into the
corner.
Chelsea, stung in action, became more direct themselves and
Alex struck a piledriver from a 30-yard free-kick over the bar.
With time running down, Drogba was denied a fine winner by a
good block, then Jones crowned a magnificent debut with an
intercepting header to keep out John Terry.
Rovers celebrated as though they had won the Premier League.
Chelsea looked as though they had just lost it.
