Wycombe: Jermaine Easter extended his remarkable run of scoring to keep Wycombe's dream of a place in the League Cup final alive after a 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the first leg of their semi-final here on yesterday (Jan 10, 2007).

The League Two side are 71 places below the Premiership champions in the league hierarchy of English football.

But Easter, who had scored in each of the the League Two side's five previous matches in the competition, displayed predatory class as he muscled his way past Michael Essien to score a well-taken equaliser, just as it seemed Chelsea would be heading back to Stamford Bridge with at least a one-goal lead for the second leg.

The 77th-minute equaliser, which cancelled out Wayne Bridge's first-half strike for Chelsea, was Easter's 19th goal of the season and the manner in which he took it suggested the striker has a future at a level above the fourth tier of English football.

His veteran strike partner Tommy Mooney was the creator, with a trademark headed flick-on into the box.

But it was Easter's ability to hold off stand-in centreback Essien before firing an early low shot past Hilario in the Chelsea goal that made the difference.

Bridge, operating in an unfamiliar attacking role, had given Chelsea the lead nine minutes before half time, shortly after his close range volley had been cleared off the line with goalkeeper Ricardo Batista beaten.

At that stage, Wycombe could justifiably have claimed to have had the better of the contest. Matt Bloomfield narrowly failed to connect with a superb Easter cross in the 19th minute and the ball finally found Kevin Betsy at the far post, forcing Hilario into a sharp save.

But it was Chelsea who broke the deadlock after an intelligent through ball from Solomon Kalou, which Bridge lifted over Batista with the outside of his boot before being floored by the outrushing goalkeeper.

Bridge recovered but collectively Chelsea continued to look a little concussed as Wycombe came at them at the start of the second half.

Bloomfield spurned a glorious chance six minutes after the restart and Chelsea were given an additional headache when Claude Makelele was booked for his part in a shoving match with Mooney soon afterwards. The yellow card means the influential French midfielder will miss Chelsea's crucial Premiership trip to Liverpool on January 20th.

Mooney then went close with a header as Wycombe continued to refuse to lie down and their belief was rewarded when Mooney outjumped Paulo Ferreira to flick Russell Martin's long ball into the path of Easter.