‘Battle At The Bridge’ Ends All Square

CHELSEA 1 – 1 MANCHESTER UNITED

Well, it was always going to be one of those days, but then again when it comes to games against Manchester United, it often seems to be ‘one of those days’.

First, we had the news that Deco had picked up some sort of muscle injury in the warm-up, then we had Carvalho lasting a mere 12 minutes before he was added to the injury list. So all in all, not the sort of start we might have hoped for. Still, there aren’t many clubs who can lose a midfielder and have the luxury of bringing on a player like Ballack as a late replacement, even a semi-fit Ballack can do a pretty decent job when called on, so we can’t complain really. And you would hardly consider it a handicap replacing Carvalho with Alex, considering the performance he put in – despite having not played for quite some time.

So, we just had to get on with the game whatever it threw at us, and I’d already predicted prior to the game that United might get more out of it than the majority seemed to think they would. I’d also expressed concerns about Bosingwa’s defensive abilities, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise to see him looking a little muscled out for United’s goal. Not that Cech was all that convincing either, as his failure to hold the shot was what ultimately allowed Park to tuck it away. Mind you, judging by all the keepers performances, a little investigation into glove sabotage wouldn’t have been out of the question yesterday.

Van der Sar of course went off eventually, which ultimately did us a favour, because Kuszczak wasn’t quite as alert when it came to Kalou’s header from Mikel’s free-kick.

So 1-1 then, and deep into injury time we enter the world of the surreal for a few minutes. Riley, who by this time clearly couldn’t extract his whistle from his mouth, blew for a Ferdinand foul on Drogba. But whilst Chelsea supporters sat expectantly waiting for it to be lined up on the edge of the area, what they actually saw was Rio losing the plot with the ref before walking off. And before anyone had time to question whether the United man had seen a red card the rest of us had missed, Fergie strides onto the pitch and it eventually became apparent we weren’t getting the free-kick after all.

So what happened then? Well obviously Riley, when confronted with a completely mental Rio Ferdinand had Di Canio flashbacks and bottled it. So, after a 90 minute spell during which the whistle really had become an extension of his mouth, he conveniently forgot how to use it when it suited him.

Positives from our point of view had to be Alex’s performance and another run-out for Drogba who seemed a lot more up for it than he did in his last brief appearance. The home record (which I still regard as a thorn in our side) remains intact and a point against United should never be sniffed at. Negatives for me have to be all about Nicolas Anelka. The man was a complete waste of a Chelsea shirt and Scolari’s decision to leave him on for the duration when not even Man City’s sort of wealth would have bought him a goal yesterday is beyond me. Another distasteful event from Chelsea’s point of view had to be the behaviour of some ‘supporters’ on meeting the departing opposition’s team coach. Pretty embarrassing really.

Overall though, we did ok and quite apart from showing some of our old resilience – to come back from a goal down – it was even more pleasing to see us still pushing forward until the final whistle was blown – or wasn’t as the case seemed to be!