The night began positively as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink managed to rediscover his scoring touch by grabbing the opener in the 42nd minute giving Claudio Ranieri further cause for celebration who was commemorating his second year in charge of Chelsea.
With Chelsea keen to banish thoughts of the previous years UEFA Cup exit to Israeli minnows Hapoel Tel Aviv, The Blues were keen to banish those European embarrassments, re-find their European confidence and give themselves breathing space by cruising past Viking. 
Come the 68th minute Chelsea finally grabbed the two goal cushion that had been threatened on several occasions as Chelsea continued to commit players forward. A goal serving as just rewards for continual pressing and effort.
Enrique De Lucas, Chelsea’s summer signing from Espanyol continues to etch himself into the hearts of the Chelsea faithful with his energetic, crisp displays and tonight, brilliantly taken goal.
The little Spaniard received the ball from a delightful Jody Morris chip, before brilliantly lobbing Olsen, Viking’s stranded goalkeeper.
With The Blues missing a number of earlier chances – most notably from Jimmy who endeavoured to be a little to cute on 56 minutes and wasted a golden scoring chance, and again in the 71st minute as De Lucas turned provider with a lovely cross but with the goal at Jimmy’s mercy, he headed wide of the post – The Blues may have felt justified that the night was theirs with Enrique scoring his first goal for the club and second of the night. 
Surely Chelsea had the breathing space they so desired?
Mistake!!
All celebrations were muted as Chelsea yet again decided to push the self destruct button.
Former Bristol City striker Ben Wright came off the bench and struck Viking’s goal with only 12 seconds of normal time remaining! Disappointment, worry and anger filtered through the now intense atmosphere of Stamford Bridge.
This of course leaves the Norwegians needing to win 1-0 in the return leg to dump Chelsea ignominiously out of the UEFA Cup.
What are we like?
Why can’t we make things easy for ourselves? To me it did seem a little unfair considering the amount of chances and possesion the team had throughout the game but……you have to make it count!
For me and I think most that were there, Jimmy is still disappointing and is not giving Claudio any reason to bring him back automatically to the first team. How many times was Jimmy second to ball? How many times was he waving his arms in the air for some particular “little protest” or other instead of getting his head down and getting on with the game? Come on Jimmy, you are worth so much more than this.
On the flip side De Lucas and Frank Lampard continued to impress. Frank in particular with his energy, sharpness and prescision passing. The difference he made to the team prominent in the second half.
Before noting Ranieri’s official response to the night’s game I was lucky enough to grab a quick word with the man who cleary stated, in no uncertain terms, “ I AM NOT HAPPY WITH THIS GAME”. Hey – I did say it was quick!
The official response:
Post-match Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri agreed that having conceded a late goal, his team would have a difficult return match in Norway in two weeks’ time.
“I spoke with my players before the game and told them it will be very hard there because at home they are better. So it is important to play well and win well here.”
Clearly disappointed that his team had spurned many chances to score, he added: “Two nil would have been a bad result but 2-1 is worse. It was very difficult to play tonight because they played very well. They played only with one in front and only counter-attack.
“They put two walls in front of the goalkeeper and were well organised. It was difficult to move the ball quick and find the right position for the strikers.”
“We made a lot of mistakes. We made two wrong passes on their goal. And also in front of goal, we made a lot of mistakes. We needed a little more calm in front of goal, a little more attention. In Europe it is important to score goals.”
His opposite number, a jubilant Benny Lennartson described tonight’s result as “a gift”.
“Two nil would have been almost impossible,” he said. “But now we are in with a chance.”
He felt that Chelsea’s first goal at the end of the first-half was unnecessary and thought from his vantage point on the bench that the second was “clearly offside”. But he did concede that Chelsea could and should have scored more goals.
“Especially Hasselbaink, he made one or two great attacks and should have scored at least once more. He is not far away from being in top form again. I have two of the best centre-halves in Norway and they struggled with his pace.
“In the second-half, when Zola came in behind the midfield, he caused us a lot of problems."
One thing Claudio Ranieri has promised Chelsea supporters is that his team will do all in their power to overturn tonight’s disappointing result. “We are going there to fight,” he said defiantly.