CHELSEA 2-2 MANCHESTER UNITED (4-1 Pens)

Well it wouldn’t be a big Chelsea game if it wasn’t contentious and this one was certainly that. To be honest I’m still flawed we won a penalty shootout.

Couple of surprises in the starting line-up, with Chelsea’s back four including Ricardo Carvalho and Branislav Ivanovic but unfortunately there were no surprises with the formation – Ancelotti insistent on his favoured midfield diamond.

Nani and Evra sussed out our weak right hand side pretty quickly and exploited it at every opportunity. Just ten minutes in that paid off with a bit of dummying from Nani, who lost both his markers and smacked the ball into the net. Good goal but fuck me, how did no-one get anything on it? As if it wasn’t enough we’d spent the summer wondering if we’d lose our captain to one side of Manchester, he opens this season by moving out of the way for the other half to bloody score!

And it didn’t get much better than that for a while either. Petr Cech, who really should’ve saved the opener, redeemed himself with a couple of sharp saves from Park then Berbatov, but aside from that, we looked about as lively as geriatric daytrippers hiking uphill. United totally dominated possession but more than that, they looked good for that possession. If anything, they should’ve killed the game off with the chances they created in the first 45.

As for us, our big players weren’t even in the game at that point, we just couldn’t settle into any sort of rhythm. Time after time we were caught napping on the ball – and I don’t know whether there was a distinct shortage of Chelsea in the crowd but the shout just wasn’t going up. It totally looked like it was going to be one of ‘those’ games – you know the sort, get royally battered, turn the mobile off, cancel the papers, take a week off work and ban SkySports from the house in the hope that it feels better next week. Ashley Cole went into pussy mode – a few boos from the crowd and he couldn’t concentrate enough to run the ball down the line. Florent Malouda turned into fifty pence foot with an embarrassing ‘shot’ past the post despite a beauty of a volley in from Drogba and it all looked like going tits up.

We sorted ourselves out around the half-hour mark though and twice Foster could’ve been made to pay for pissing about with the ball in his area but we still lacked a little bit of desire and any attacks we might have had were dealt with comfortably by a pretty solid looking United backline. So we went in at the break a goal down.

Second half saw Jose Bosingwa on for Ivanovic, and with United a goal to the good, it was a substitution that made complete sense. Our equalizer came from Carvalho in the 52^nd minute with a lovely ball floated over from Florent Malouda. Nani, who’d done some great work in the first half, undid a fair bit of that with some lazy defensive play against Malouda, Drogba couldn’t get his head to it but Carvalho could, diving in from Foster’s attempted clearance to make it all square.

We were starting to look a different side to the one that’d failed to show up for much of the first half, picking up the pace and putting in the odd shot – albeit from distance. And then the inevitable controversy. First off, Terry puts in a typical JT tackle on Nani, with the United man going down and staying down. Borderline stuff you’d have to say but with Nani departing with a dislocated shoulder (and replaced by Valencia), it’s always going to add fuel to the smouldering fire.

Three minutes later and the boos were ringing around Wembley although whether they were for the departing Mikel or Ballack coming on, it’s hard to tell since neither of them have ever endeared themselves to our opponents. And Ballack was about to cement that fact as he first went to ground far too easily, earning a free-kick from the slightest brush of Evra’s shoulder. It was a nothing challenge and pretty embarrassing the strapping German midfielder couldn’t stand up to it a bit better than that. Still, he seemed to recover well enough to blatantly bodycheck Evra and whilst he was still down, with the overwhelmed Chris Foy somehow seeing this challenge a different way, we’d nicked the ball off them and gone on to score, with Frank Lampard slotting in off the post in the 70^th minute. And whilst any goal against United might usually be celebrated with wild abandon, this one was marked with no more than a bit of awkward shoulder slapping. Should we have carried on playing? Well, the rules suggest we play to the whistle so we hadn’t actually done anything wrong in scoring the goal but the incident that led up to it was more ‘sour taste’ in the mouth than champagne bubbles.

Fergie, clearly up for overturning their 2-1 deficit decided it was time to test our ‘oldies’ by bringing on fresh legs, with Park off for Giggs, Berbatov off for Owen, Fletcher off for Scholes and O’Shea off for Fabio Da Silva. Sadly, it seemed all Ancelotti could respond with was Deco for Malouda, so not exactly knee-trembling fear for the opposition.

Kalou, who’s put his birthday hangover behind him apparently came on for Anelka, who might well have deserved a bit more from the game than he got but no time to worry about that because Rooney was starting to threaten a bit too much, looping the ball just over the net with 6 minutes to go. Then up pops Owen – literally – booked for handball one minute, then closing in on goal the next, fortunately he couldn’t get his head to it. Not that it mattered, because the threat from Rooney paid off for United in the 92^nd minute. Ashley Cole played him on, Rooney took the ball past Bosingwa, and cool as the proverbial cucumber, slots home as United rescue the game in the dying seconds – didn’t that use to be our trademark once?

So the dreaded penalties it was. We’d lost our last five, two of them to United and you couldn’t help thinking the hattrick was on.

Lampard up first, predictably slotting it home easily. Giggs for United and Cech stops it with his feet, advantage Chelsea. Ballack up next for us, another strong penalty taker and another ball in the back of the net. Carrick for United, who puts it past Cech in spite of our keeper doing his best impression of a scarecrow before the spotkick. Drogba, who managed to stay on the field long enough for this one, shows us what we might have missed in Moscow as he makes it 3-1. Evra, arguably United’s best player on the day steps up for United’s 3^rd and lets himself down with a soft penalty straight into Cech’s arms and after a bit of confusion during which Deco seemed to prepare himself for our fourth, the ball is eventually passed to Salomon Kalou, who coolly bangs it into the top corner for the win.

Observations from the game then, I have to say I don’t like Ancelotti’s system. It might have suited his players at Milan but it doesn’t seem to suit us and I can’t see it being a huge success in the Premier League. It certainly doesn’t seem to suit Mikel, who looks to be struggling with the holding role and Frank Lampard’s trademark runs are a lot easier to stifle.  Essien didn’t look comfortable playing wide and we desperately need Yuri Zhirkov or Joe Cole in the side.  On a positive note, Carvalho – if he really is happy to stay now – put in the sort of performance that no only showed us exactly why we’d missed him so much last season but also why JT missed him even more than we did.

To the game itself, it was a lot more competitive than I expected. We started too slow and whilst we improved significantly in the second half, we might not get the chance to do that in the league. Our second goal – or at least the events leading up to it – made our lead feel a little uncomfortable, so for once I was glad to see it go to penalties – and even more satisfied to see us put them away so impressively.

As for our opponents, I can see Nani really coming into his own now that he doesn’t have Ronaldo (remember him?) to compete with. I said the other day it doesn’t seem to matter who leaves United because there always seems to be someone else ready to step up their game. And as the season goes on, I think that could be a luxury we’ll wish we had.

TEAMS

CHELSEA: Cech, Ivanovic (Bosingwa 45), Terry, Carvalho, A Cole, Mikel (Ballack 65), Malouda (Deco 78), Drogba, Anelka (Kalou 84).

UNITED: Foster, O’Shea (F Da Silva 76), Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Park (Giggs 76), Fletcher (Scholes 76), Carrick, Nani (Valencia 63), Rooney, Berbatov (Owen 76).

GOALS

CHELSEA: Carvalho (52), Lampard (70)

UNITED: Nani (10), Rooney (90+3)

Filed under: Match report