READ by the BLUES

Newly promoted premiership side Reading's attempt to prevent Chelsea the chance of hitting the top spot of the premiership hit a nag as the Blues came from a 1- 2 down to clinch a 4 – 2 victory over the Royals in a topsy-turvey affair at the Stamford Bridge.

Goals from Frank Lampard, Fernando Torres, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic was enough to secure a win for the European Champions to make it 30 wins, 4 draws out of their last 34 Premiership clashes against newly promoted sides at the Stamford Bridge since they lost 0 – 1 to Charlton Athletic in the year 2001.

Chelsea who were highly favored by the statistics took the lead through a Frank Lampard's 18th minute penalty but Reading responded quickly putting Chelsea's three man midfield (Ramires, Lampard, Obi) into a ditch with their 4-man midfield of (McAnuff, Leigertwood, Guthrie and McCleary) .

The Royals pulled parity in the 25th minute when a quick exchange between McCleary and McAnuff found Pavel Pogrebnyak in the Blues box to head into the twine. Reading took the lead in the space of four minutes when Danny McAnuff opened his Reading goal account with a stunning free kick from outside the box to beat Petr Cech.

The Champions came back from the recess with a lot of energy and determination. It came as no surprise therefore when defender Gary Cahill pounced on Adam Federici's goal keeping error to level the scores for Chelsea and if the Blues had to take the lead it had to be the resurgent Fernando Torre's seemingly offside goal in the 80th minute.

In a quest to level the score before the blast of the referee's whistle, goalie Adam Federici left his post to search for an equalizer and Chelsea's new found danger man Eden Hazard paid them equally with his intelligent run which saw Ivanovic to rest the case at 4 – 2 for Chelsea pushing them to the summit of the table.

By: El-Amisty Nobo/www.lloydsplaza.com