Chelsea 2-1 ManUtd: Blue it?
May 31, 2008
Stamford Bridge has always been a unique experience. When I first went there to watch Georgie Best weave his magic against Tommy Docherty’s excellent Chelsea side it was a crumbling ruin set against the railway junction at the seedy end of the Fulham Road. It had been built about ten years before Old Trafford when Britain was top nation and Edwardian industrial power was at its peak and the facilities had been largely untouched since.
The playing area was a vast, uneven field within a cinder track. Even a few years back when we watched Eric get his first United goal there the away end was a massive open terrace with one disgusting toilet cubicle and a urinal big enough to handle four people at a time and you stood behind vast metal cages, the vendors with hot dogs and drinks and monkey nuts on the other side handing their wares through the bars as if you were in the zoo.
When the club began to get rich, a succession of extraordinary stands went up, one of them so tall and vertical that the Special Forces could safely have parachuted from the top tier and the view from it was like watching Subbuteo. Now, of course, they live on the unimaginable wealth sequestered whilst infant democracy blinked in Russia, and it’s not like a football ground at all. It’s like going to an upmarket shopping mall.
You turn right past the brick and concrete offices, built in that universal architecture that would mark the financial quarter of a city in a modern Gulf State, you go past the big block of overpriced city apartments, turn left just past Marco Pierre White’s internationally acclaimed restaurant (where Peter Hain, the former Cabinet Minister, strolls past you on the way to the match) and the visitors’ turnstiles, only five of them, are discreetly tucked away opposite the Millennium Hotel.
Inside you climb the stairs and emerge into a modest modern stadium, the pitch as compact as possible in an area where land can only be afforded by Arab Royalty or Russian capital. This lends itself to an atmosphere of sorts, but unlike other similarly sized grounds, Anfield for example, or White hart Lane, it retains nothing of history or tradition. Roy Bentley would be lost. The Shed itself is celebrated by a plaque on the wall outside as if it were a famous writer.
The home supporters have been packed on the trains like mobile phones packed in a cardboard carton from Shanghai. They come with us up through Purley and Croydon, past the Crystal Palace ground, or from Wimbledon and Putney, past the Fulham ground, or from the West past the Brentford or Queens Park Rangers grounds. They all have blue shirts and sing “We support our local team”.
The pubs around my own home suburb will be packed with them watching the game on television, all assuring each other they have been lifelong Chelsea supporters. Before 1994 I swear I never saw a blue shirt in Wallington.
So we walk along the Fulham Road in the warm Spring sunshine with the gathering blue throng and pockets of shirtless lads loudly bearing raw suntans from Barcelona in good spirits “We’re going to win the football league again, this time at Stamford Bridge…..” Then we hear the team and my heart sinks.
I know this is sandwiched between two Barcelona games. I know Chelsea, who have been whingeing about the injustice of the fixture list, have had an extra day to recover from their semi-final and will get another extra day to recover from this. But we are going to our hardest away game of the season where the home side are unbeaten over 80 games, with a weakened team.
Chelsea also have a lot to do to get to the Champions League Final and they are playing all their available stars. In the stand I listen to the roll call of their intimidating collection of mercenaries and contemplate no Evra, no Scholes, no Hargreaves, no Ronaldo, no Tevez in the starting line-up. We allege we are coming here to win yet we are playing with just Rooney up front.
We are at the back of the upper tier at the Shed End. The singing is good. Some of the men next to me have drunk enough by 12.45 to be having trouble standing in the aisles and they stagger forward causing a domino effect, all in fairly good nature. Out on the pitch all is not well. We see Wes Brown very nearly beat Van der Sar with an early back header, and United can hardly get the ball.
As in Barcelona, there appears to be no connection between the back of the team and the front; we are not relieving the pressure because we are not keeping the ball, we pass it about, then nobody makes a run and it goes back to Van der Sar who punts it upfield where we lose it again. We belt out all the current ditties; what else is there to do? We are not fifteen minutes into the game yet and already counting the minutes.
Then Drogba clashes with Vidic and leaves him on the floor with a bloody mouth. The sight of our big man being carried off on a stretcher is not a good one. Wes Brown moves infield and Hargreaves comes on at right back, thus restricting our ability to bring on the cavalry should it be needed.
I watch with envy as Drogba plays a superb first half for them, winning every aerial ball, flicking on ground passes and headers, every time to a blue shirt. It helps that like most of their team he is bigger than our lot. They look enormous. We have poor old Rooney jumping valiantly against giants for long punts and even when he wins it there is no-one for him to pass to.
They are pressing all over the field; Hargreaves, right in front of me, is constantly under threat, mainly from Kalou. He is good on the ball, but it prevents him doing anything other than occupying a small wedge of space near our corner flag. The central defence copes well with the threat but we are defending much too deep to survive, a fact illustrated when the ball breaks luckily to Joe Cole (who looks like a midget in this company) but he is able to snap in a dangerous shot which ricochets of the bar.
Just as I begin to think we will survive until half time disaster strikes. It’s Drogba. He makes his twentieth run at our defence, this time on our left, and when he crosses there is nobody on Ballack of all people, who does not even have to leap to bury a very competent header; 45 minutes 0-1. As the half time whistle blows it dawns on me that we are lucky to be only one down, it could be worse.
As the second half begins, it gets worse; Rooney holds his groin and starts limping. Then out of nothing Carvalho, whom I rate as one of their best, is given a most unwelcome surprise pass and delivers a shocking panic crossfield ball to Rooney who ignores the injury, outpaces Terry, goes dribbling across Petr Cech and scores from twelve yards out with a lovely reverse ground shot off the left hand post; 57 minutes 1-1.
Goals change games. Rooney has to go off but Ronaldo comes on and suddenly the season is ours again for the taking; Ferguson is a tactical genius after all. Ronaldo is literally wrestled to a standstill in the box by Ballack; but the refereeing team are all looking elsewhere. Anderson is producing thrusting runs, Giggs has a decent shot saved, Giggs and Nani exchange passes on the left and if only Giggs had anticipated the return there was a near post header there for him. Ronaldo is through with a lightning run only to be pulled up wrongly for offside.
Their defence is not that good; when we go at them we cause them serious problems. Perhaps we will bring Tevez on and finish the day in triumph. The board goes up, the substitution is coming and we look at each other in astonishment. He is replacing Anderson with O’Shea. Just when the momentum was building.
Still, the minutes tick by and we might, we just might, get away with it. Drogba takes a great free kick and Van der Sar pulls off a tremendous save. Then Drogba gets through; cries go up for a handball, Van der Sar saves again, phew!
But football is a cruel game. With time running out an unlucky bounce on the right wing, Essien loops in a cross and the other end of the ground erupts in a call for handball. The referee waves play on and the boos begin and then, horror of horrors, he points to the spot. Nobody at our end can see what happened. United players protest vehemently but he’s not going to change his mind again, is he?
The girl in front of me turns round and wants some comfort, some kind of physical contact with the hands, but what good is that? A gun with a telescopic sight might be of some use. Otherwise its in the lap of the gods now. Van der Sar walks forward, holds Ballack up, gets booked. Go right, Edwin, Ballack always shoots to his left. Edwin dives left. Ballack shoots very hard to Van der Sar’s right; 87 minutes 1-2.
Suddenly, reserves or not, United attack with abandon. When that happens I always wonder why we didn’t do it before it was too late. It is chaos in front of us, Nani’s superb pull-down, Ronaldo’s carefully placed shot, the hateful Ashley Cole is on the post to hack it clear. Then Carrick is floored in the area, it looks a clear penalty (it’s not) but the scramble continues, O’Shea gets in a header but Shevchenko is there this time to clear it off the line and, as Hughsie put it, we have run out of time.
International shopping village it might be, but young men outside are beginning to lower the tone. Football fans, lower the tone? Geriatric coward, I vote for avoiding Fulham Broadway and the traditional gauntlet of locals who roll well oiled out of the pubs and hurl abuse.
We walk in sullen anonymity down the Fulham Road and through West Brompton Cemetery where was buried Pocahontas and a Surgeon General who lived before Stamford Bridge was built with the glorious name of Cunter. Ghouls are picnicking in the place. Chelsea fans around us are going on about the best game they’ve seen all season but it doesn’t feel like that to me. Some tosser on a phone at West Brompton Station is telling his mate that Ashley Cole has Ronaldo in his pocket. No mate, he was on the bloody bench; that was the problem.
No matter how much Ferguson and Queiroz complain, I now know that Carrick handled the ball. He says he tried to move his arm, but it doesn’t really look that way, it’s just the kind of thing you say when you might have thrown away the season in one senseless moment. If it all turns to pig shit it won’t be Carrick’s fault anyway; these things happen. We’re looking at an isolated moment and blaming the referee when we might be examining our own tactics and selection.
I can see that legs have to be rested and that two Barcelonas and a Chelsea in a week is tough by any standards, perhaps there was no real choice. But to my simple mind we play without a real striker. We succeed because we have three great, running ball players who can interchange, interpass and destroy anyone. Sure, we have to rotate them, but the system does not work if two or more of them are on the bench. We talked all week about going and winning it on Saturday and we played in a negative, careful way. Half as many shots as Chelsea, just over 40% of possession.
The fates have deserted us in the last couple of weeks and if they’re against you there’s no hope. But you can appease them, you can at least invite them to help you. The season moves on to its climax and is still there for the taking. It’s just that with a little thing here, a little there, we could have been playing our big game on Tuesday and then resting everybody.
Now every single game is vital. I can’t be the only one who has a bad feeling about this. For those of us not playing, I think plenty of alcohol is probably the best solution.
Copyright © Paul James
Barcelona 0-0 ManUtd: Villains and Heroes
April 26, 2008
Sometimes the fates conspire against you. I had already ducked out of work next week because of Tuesday’s home leg and could not really do the same for the away leg. So instead of soaking up the atmosphere in the Catalan capital I find myself at a Management Centre in Hampshire.
I organise my day around being free at 7.45, and leave the others at dinner. I’ve got the team selection on text, and it’s worrying; Vidic out with a stomach upset, Ji Sung Park in, Scholes and Carrick but no Anderson. I rate Hargreaves as a stand-in right back, and the rest look good until I realise he has moved them all round; Tevez in support, Ronny as striker, Rooney on the wing.
The TV is not on. Is nobody watching the football? “Sky is down. Don’t worry, sir, we can rig up the television in the Arden Suite.” I go there. The place takes ten minutes to find and is deserted. I’m becoming Mr Nasty; I don’t need Sky next week, sunshine, I need it now. I run down to the pub. Nice bar, nice beer. Big telly, no Sky.
Why do they run conferences in the middle of fucking Hampshire? I run back (it’s only a quarter of a mile) and am reduced to sitting in my car listening to Alan Green and Chris Waddle on Five Live over eighty minutes of torture.
From them I get the impression we are utterly awful, that it is a miserable display, that our season is falling apart. I catch the BBC News, which headlines that United are hammered by Barcelona and shows me the missed penalty and a pretty good shot from Thierry Henry which moves all over the place and Van der Sar just manages to knock down.
I go to bed a worried and disappointed man pondering on that glorious 3-3 when Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke played like Puskas and Di Stefano, and on the contrast between this year’s dross and last year’s first leg; the beautiful game at its peak.
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Blackburn Rovers 1-1 ManUtd: Another Week of Worry
April 26, 2008
Like many, I was worried all week. The pleasure of Wigan’s late equaliser on Tuesday had been buried in the news of Chelsea’s win at Goodison Park on Thursday. Last year’s 1-0 was the only league win we have enjoyed at Ewood Park since 1998 and this year Blackburn are enjoying their best season for a while. They are also officially the league’s second most dirty side; nobody has collected more red cards. This was never going to be easy.
History will make little of Saturday’s drama. The record will just have a 1-1 draw between Blackburn and United on the way either to Chelsea’s amazing last-ditch theft of the title, or to United’s retention of it. As we all know, that tells only a tiny fragment of the truth and I am afraid there are likely to be another 280-odd minutes of gut-twisting agony before we are out of this one way or the other. It is usually so.
Where he could, Ferguson went for experience in his team selection. Kuszczak played in goal but with the return of Vidic, the defence was back to strength and Scholes and Carrick were in the middle, flanked by Ronaldo and Giggs. Rooney and Tevez were together again up front. As usual this was only Blackburn’s second full house of the season; the reported 8,000 or so United fans were loud and impressive throughout the match. Oh to have been there.
United began well; confident, no real sign of nerves, passing the ball. Yet there were only two clear chances in the first twenty minutes and the first of them fell to Blackburn. Paul Scholes’ attempted clearance led to a chance for Jason Roberts. He was stopped by Kuszczak, whose challenge at first glance looked illegal but in fact the goalkeeper kicked the ball away before the collision and did his best to avoid any unnecessary contact.
The United chance came when Rooney’s great run on the right ended with a peach of a cross for Tevez, who needed to sidefoot it home from a yard or two; he all but missed the ball completely.
The match was transformed when Blackburn scored. From a throw-in on the United right Roberts challenged Vidic and Ferdinand. I don’t think the ball touched Roberts, but somehow it bounced off and between the two defenders and rolled invitingly across the goal where Roque Santa Cruz cracked it in confidently inside the far post from about twelve yards and it was 20 minutes 0-1 and Chelsea fans, Scousers and ABUs were dancing with delight in pubs and bars up and down the country.
United seemed to become nervy; Blackburn harried and worked and tackled hard and sometimes illegally, and delayed at all dead balls. This led to a scrappy forty minutes, either side of the interval. United got nothing from the officials.
In the first half alone there was a catalogue of decisions; a wrong offside decision against Tevez when he was clean through on the half hour; an amazing failure by the linesman to see that the ball was at least a clear foot out of play, which led to a period of sustained Blackburn pressure; and a trip by Reid on Rooney in the corner of the area for which we should have had a penalty (Wayne made it easy for the referee to refuse by deciding to dive and then had one his red mist tantrums; I hope he knows he’ll be sent off if he does that in Barcelona).
Kuszczak palmed over a long distance scorcher from Bentley then, just before half time, Ronaldo produced a beautifully athletic textbook header from Carrick’s corner, which was powerful but too close to Brad Friedel, who saved photogenically.
The bad patch, such as it was, continued after half time. Blackburn had come out to hang on to what they had, which is fair enough. Nani had come on for Giggs but it was a full five minutes before he even got a touch, such was United’s apparent inability to impose themselves.
Physically we were not intimidated. Wes Brown dished out a couple of Blackburn tackles; it’s just that they have five or six players who have to make good the gap in class by playing that way, and we only have one. After an hour, Hughes’ tactics were working, United were going nowhere and the dynamics of the season were such that a second goal out of the blue and our title would be disappearing down the tubes.
When Santa Cruz headed well over in the 66th minute, however, it was their first attempt of the half; they had one more, when Pedersen beat Scholes and Brown too easily and dribbled cleverly down the left only to shoot across the face of the goal.
At the other end United had begun to apply the pressure. Ronaldo picked up a careless Reid clearance and from way outside the area let fly a shot which beat Friedel and hit the far post. But as if bad luck and the referee weren’t enough, as United picked up the tempo Friedel turned in a blinding performance.
United kept playing the football, Blackburn were forced further and further back. Scholes, who had looked vulnerable earlier, was lording the centre of the pitch, Blackburn could hardly get the ball out of their own half. Rooney was taken out by a belly-high boot from Nelson and played on when he might have come off. Bent over and wincing every time he was off the ball, he showed spirit by doing all he could when play got near him, and was heavily involved in the action.
With fifteen minutes to go he set up a great moment from the left, Ronaldo was tackled from behind as he went through but before anybody could get excited about a possible penalty (which it probably wasn’t) Tevez was onto it and his shot was brilliantly reached by Friedel, who then had the wit to twist and fall on the ball as it crept over the line.
O’Shea came on for Brown. Nani put Rooney clean through with a great ball; Friedel pulled off another save. Carrick headed a ball from a left wing corner which Emerton played with his elbow in a crowded area. This was a big decision. What Emerton did was quite deliberate; Styles was either unsighted or blind.
The pressure was unrelenting; we got a free kick which Nani took quickly, Tevez was through but the referee demanded a retake. Nani flighted this one in wickedly and O’Shea got a prod; somehow Friedel, travelling the wrong way, recovered to get something in the way and keep it out. Just when you had resigned yourself to the fact that this was not going to be our day, we got given a corner that should have been a goal kick.
Nani took it from the left, Paul Scholes rose to head it dangerously across the goal and there was Carlos Tevez, a couple of yards from the line jumping backwards and high to get his head to it and the ball was nestling into the corner and fans and players celebrating as if we had done more than win just another week of torture; 88 minutes 1-1. We might have won the match had Styles given the free kick when Tevez was fouled on the way through in added time.
It was a knuckle-grinding cracker of a match and though beforehand we all felt we needed to win, in the cold light of a weekday morning I see it far from being an opportunity lost, but a great performance and a great result. We were playing against luck and, it seemed, the referee, and for the third match in a row we showed the mettle of champions to take the situation by the scruff of the neck and through sheer determination and effort gain what was being denied us.
“They don’t ever accept they’re beaten” Mark Hughes was quoted in The Times “and when they are, they don’t say they’ve lost, they say they ran out of time.” Much as I’d like it to be otherwise, it’s Ferguson that Hughsie is describing, not United. It wasn’t that way before he came and it probably won’t be that way a decade after he’s gone.
But he’s still here; Stamford Bridge here we come. How much more can I take? Miracle of miracles, I’ve got a ticket; it’s so much easier to share the tension than it is to ulcerate alone in front of the television.
Copyright © Paul James
ManUtd 2-1 Arsenal : Class with the Brass
April 17, 2008
It is ridiculous that a man of my age should be losing sleep over football matches, but there you go. Each time the season reaches its climax I become convinced that this title is the one that really matters because it might be our last as our rivals will surely mature or improve, but Fergie keeps coming up with the goods. You feel that as long as he is here and avoids unfortunate relationships with racehorses the inevitable collapse will be staved off.
Yet, despite my fear that a failure to win would herald one of those agonising periods when the title slips out of your grasp and there is not a thing you can do about it except sit with your head in your hands, I was excited about this match rather than afraid and I soaked up the pre-match atmosphere on the Warwick Road. On crucial days like this, it really takes you back.
We had selected Pique to partner Rio in an otherwise full strength defence. I thought this the right choice, but was surprised that Park was picked in favour of Giggs on the flank. The real problem I had was the absence of both Anderson and Tevez, and Rooney playing on his own up front.
To my mind we had destroyed Arsenal in the Cup, and triggered their poor end to the season through out and out attack. For me this was not a day to be cautious; an early goal could destroy them and we have shown we are one of the few teams in Europe who can do this to Arsenal.
Alex Ferguson was awarded the albatross award of manager of the month and Ronaldo was given the player of the month award. Ronnie seldom performs at his best when someone has just given him an award. Still, the match kicked off with the crowd in strong voice, the Spring sun had come out and Arsenal whom everybody agreed had to win to keep their title hopes alive, were clearly up for it. Not so United.
ManUtd 1-0 Roma: An Aroma of Tension
April 12, 2008
Neutral observers to a man reported last night’s game as a comfortable stroll for United, but this worrying fan did not see it in that light. I seldom enjoy second legs; there is too much at stake, too much expectation and too great a history of disappointment.
This is stupid because it is a great privilege to support a club which for the moment at least can play at this level; for a hiked-up price (Glazer put the tickets up from £38 to £45) I am watching the best that European club football has to offer; what I should really do is sit back and enjoy.
The first worry was the absence of Vidic. The second was the question mark over Ferdinand. When the second worry was addressed with the announcement that Ferdinand was playing, came the third, unforeseen worry; Ferguson had chosen to play a weak side in a European Cup quarter final.
Pique was Vidic’s replacement. Wes Brown was playing at right back, where he has had a successful season, but Mikael Silvestre was drafted in at left back for his first game since he was injured in September. We picked three midfielders, Carrick, Hargreaves and Anderson, flanked by Giggs and Park, with Tevez as lone striker. Hargreaves played much further forward than you would have expected.
To call that a weak team speaks volumes for the talent that Ferguson has collected at some expense to bolster last year’s core, but that is how it seemed when I first heard it.
United began impressively. It looked as if any personality could slip into any position and the whole machine would work as smoothly as ever. We were producing flowing moves and carving out great chances; Roma had Doni to thank for excellent saves from Hargreaves, Anderson and Giggs; Hargreaves and Park were putting in great balls from the right and Giggs’ through ball for Hargreaves was a dream.
Roma were neat. As you would expect from Italy, they could all find each other with the ball and there was some trickery on show. They plugged away intelligently and cleverly to try to nick the goal which would change the complexion of the tie. People around me said at the end that they didn’t really have a go, yet their strategy looked sound and very nearly produced dividends.
