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With every game we win, I’m really starting to trust Roberto Di Matteo’s philosophy because judging from the results we’re getting under his leadership, albeit an interim one, it’s giving us all the confidence we need to turn our season around, and hopefully end the season, either with a Champions League place, or even winning the Champions League.

And our great form under Di Matteo continued today with a very well-deserved 4-2 away win over Aston Villa. Considering that this was only our 2nd win at Villa Park in 12 meetings, I’d say this was a key win today.. and Arsenal lost 2-1 away to QPR, so it’s smiles all round for us blues. If Swansea can defeat Spurs tomorrow, then that would just be the icing on the cake!

Daniel Sturridge got us off the mark with a tap in on 9 minutes, and then it stayed 1-0 until Branislav Ivanovic popped up to nod in our second goal. Villa fought back however through goals by James Collins and Eric Lichaj to make it level at 2-2, and suddenly, all hope looked bleak.. another game at Villa park without a win was looming… until Ivanovic smashed in our third, and then Fernando Torres, after 6 months without a league goal, ended his drought with a last minute strike.

Speaking of Torres, I think he deserves all the recent plaudits given to him by the Chelsea fans. It wasn’t very long ago that he was playing second fiddle to Didier Drogba because he was on the decline under Andre Villas-Boas, and there were question marks on his future at the club.. now under Roberto, he has found the sparkle in his form, and is now linking up well with Juan Mata and Daniel Sturridge in attack, and it looks like we’re finally seeing the Torres of old.

Another player I want to talk a little briefly about is Mata. When I first saw the team sheet before the game, I said to myself, “oh goodness me, why is he starting again for Chelsea? He NEEDS to rest!” .. but to tell you the truth, Mata certainly plays well for someone who’s played 4 straight matches without being able to rest.. he was one of our star performers until he had to come off for Florent Malouda.. definitely deserved the plaudits, and should have definitely scored a goal for himself.

And just a little more here about David Luiz coming off at half time? What was wrong with him. Some people say that he came off with an injury to his ankle. Well, when he walked off the pitch to be replaced by Gary Cahill, he was walking perfectly fine to me. Maybe it was a slight injury to his ankle, and nothing more than that. I reckon he will be fit for the home leg against Benfica next week.

In conclusion, great win! Especially at a venue where we don’t win very often, and Roberto Di Matteo is certainly getting it right in terms of rotating the squad, and letting players work in the way that they want. It was never like that under AVB.. players emotions and feelings were all over the place back then, and hence the barrage of defeats.. but under RDM, players play because they care about the club, and the turnaround of results in all competitions we’re in really proves that. Can we snatch 4th place from Tottenham… I say YES… we can!

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Going into the away match at Benfica tonight, my immediate thoughts were, “it’s an away match, the best we can salvage is a score draw and hope we can finish the job at Stamford Bridge”, however, what we got, was not only a quite remarkable first away victory in the Champions League, but the fact that Roberto Di Matteo was proving to everyone that he’s not just a caretaker manager!

The players must have studied Benfica’s tactical game prior to the match and then put their preparation into practice on the training pitch.. a little similar to AVB’s job when Mourinho was in charge. But, whatever it was, everything seemed to fall into place. Benfica were rattled at times, Chelsea’s defence were in the right positions to stop Benfica from creating and attacking, and it all worked like a charm!

David Luiz and Ramires in particular just didn’t stop working! Ramires with his darting runs in central midfield, winning crucial free kicks in the middle of the park wherever necessary, while Luiz’s dazzling defensive diving headers just kept Benfica’s attack guessing. It’s this kind of ambition which shows that some of these players are still determined to keep going in Europe, and knowing that our hopes of landing a top 4 spot in the league, meaning qualification to next year’s competition hang in the balance, so it’s important that we keep going and get these important results.

And about Luiz, I’ve never witnessed a player with a strong desire of playing for Chelsea as much as him, since John Terry! Every time he plays for the club, he’s always giving 100%, and not only that, he’s probably one of the most “happy-go-lucky” players we have at the club. I almost felt insulted when I read an article from the Daily Mail the other day about Barcelona, planning a £35m bid for him in the summer! It obviously won’t happen simply because he loves playing for us! The only slight fault I have in Luiz’s play however, is that sometimes, he enjoys going forward a bit too much, and if he’s too far up the pitch while the opponent has the ball, it means we’re lacking numbers at the back, although, we do have players like Michael Essien or John Obi Mikel to cover for Luiz while he’s up the pitch.

As for our goal, well, you can’t argue that Fernando Torres is showing everyone that he’s slowly starting to look like his old self again.. despite turning 28 a couple of days ago, he’s getting there. He doesn’t have to score goals to put on a good show, and his assist to Salomon Kalou for the goal just proves that!

I think we can finish the job at Stamford Bridge. With a 1-0 lead going into that second leg against a side who didn’t seem all that confident tonight, on their home ground.. we can easily score another 3 goals against them. If we can notch 3 past Valencia, and save ourselves from disaster with 4 against Napoli, we can certainly beat Benfica at home. The only thing that worries me however, is complaicency.