CHELSEA 2-1 UNITED
Ok, so they could have had a penalty in the first half and we could’ve been down to ten men in the second and if my granny had a dick she’d be my granddad, blah, blah. The fact is, we were desperate to take 3 points off United, we were desperate to show there’s a bit of fight left in us yet and we managed both.
I have to say I was a little surprised by both line-ups, largely around front men because for us, it was a big decision for Ancelotti to leave Didier Drogba on the bench again, particularly for this fixture and for United, well you just don’t tend to leave a Premier League top scorer out of these games.
Still, they managed perfectly well without him in the first half because despite a bright enough spell for all of ten minutes from us, they pretty much ran rings around us for most of it. Aside from calls from everywhere for Cole to ‘shoot’ early on, we had little to smile about in a first half where the improvement against Copenhagen seemed a distant memory.
We looked slow to the point of static at times, played far too narrow, had nothing to offer in the way of attack and only David Luiz by way of defence apparently. United meanwhile, settled into the game better after just two real efforts of note to cause any concern, a shot from Torres ruled out for…well, I’m still not sure really and Malouda’s ruled out by the keeper he hit it straight at. But from the pressure that followed, Rooney’s goal on 29 minutes came as no surprise at all, especially with Ivanovic choosing that particular moment to play statues. Lampard’s attempt to close Rooney down came after the event and despite the 25 yards the ball had to travel before it got to Cech, it evidently wasn’t enough time for him to prepare for its arrival.
Fortunately we didn’t fall apart completely though and even managed to get a little bit more work out of Van der Sar before half-time despite spending most of our time on the back-foot but it was after the break that we really woke up.
David Luiz, who for me looks an absolute gem of a signing put in the sort of performance we used to expect from the likes of Terry or Lampard. He was bloody everywhere last night and if that meant the odd battle here and there, he had no intention of shying away from it. I don’t doubt other refs might be a bit tougher on him than Atkinson was but it’s been a while since we’ve seen a Chelsea player prepared to grab the game by the balls and he got the reward he deserved when he volleyed in the equaliser from Essien’s cross 9 minutes after the break.
Game on – and we were actually in it again. Chances went begging either end, with Lampard and Drogba frustrated although most notable were probably Rooney’s misses that had Neville looking even more pained in the crowd than he used to on the pitch. Fergie responded to Carlo’s subbing Anelka for Drogba by bringing on Giggs and Berbatov although that was fairly subdued given his response to Luiz getting away with what should have been a second yellow for a trip on Rooney.
But whilst Atkinson didn’t spot that, fortunately for us, he did catch sight of Smalling’s leg upending substitute Yuri Zhirkov in the box and true to what seems to be his form this season, pointed to the spot. Thankfully it was Frank Lampard stepping up to take it and a slightly more recognisable Lampard smashing it into the roof of the net with just over ten minutes remaining.
Carlo made the very wise decision to withraw Luiz for Bosingwa at this point, Fergie wasn’t quite as cautious with Vidic though and after the United defender had just got in the way of a Zhirkov shot before it hit the post, his final contribution of the night was to be a foul on Ramires just outside the box that saw him take his leave early with a second yellow.
Life’s a bitch.
TEAMS
CHELSEA: Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Luiz (Bosingwa, 81), A.Cole, Ramires, Essien, Lampard, Malouda (Zhirkov, 71), Torres, Anelka (Drogba, 61)
Unused subs: Turnbull Mikel Bosingwa Ferreira McEachran
UNITED: Van der Sar, O’Shea, Smalling, Vidic, Evra (Fabio, 81), Scholes (Giggs, 70), Fletcher, Carrick, Nani, Rooney, Hernandez (Berbatov, 70).
Unused subs: Kuszczak, Brown, Rafael, Gibson.
GOALS
CHELSEA: Luiz 54, Lampard 79 (pen)
UNITED: Rooney 29
Blue is the colour
