Chelsea v Manchester United: Big Game Report

I’m going to start with the first half, as there are fewer difficult decisions and controversial comments to be made. United were straight out of the blocks, with Valencia, back on the right wing, Rooney and Van Persie looking particularly up for this game. Consequently they were rewarded after 4 minutes when Rooney pulled back for Van Persie to smash his shot against the post, which then rebounded onto David Luiz and past Petr Cech for one of the more unlucky own goals you’re likely to see this season. Roberto Di Matteo might feel that his two full backs Cole and Ivanovic should have tracked their men, Rooney and Van Persie respectively, slightly better but the pace of the attack so early in the game no doubt took the Chelsea defence by surprise. United continued to apply the pressure and it was another quick breakaway which led to the second United goal, only 8 minutes later. Rafael receiving a lofted ball from Rio Ferdinand, booed throughout, and then played a quick line-ball to Valencia whose drilled cross went through the legs of David Luiz and found Robin Van Persie to slot it past Cech to make it 2-0. Again the Chelsea manager will be disappointed with the marking, while Van Persie’s run for the first was difficult to track, there were a couple of seconds for this goal where Van Persie was standing pretty much still in the middle of the Chelsea box and no one in a blue shirt picked him up. At 2-0 up united continued to have the better of the game until around the half hour mark, at which point the fact that they were winning seemed to hit United after having to come from behind for so many of their previous victories. Jonny Evans almost became the second centre back of the night to score an own goal as Tom Cleverley allowed Jon Obi Mikel to run past him unchecked who then saw his smashed cross bounce off Evans’ shin against the post. Gary Cahill went close from the resulting Juan Mata corner, seeing his header shinned wide from David De Gea, who seemed to save more with his legs than his hands. De Gea was on hand again 5 minutes later to pull off the save of the match, reminiscent of David Seaman in an FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield United, from a Fernando Torres header which seemed certain to go in. There was nothing De Gea could do two minutes later when, following a stupid foul from Wayne Rooney on a surprisingly subdued Eden Hazard, Juan Mata hit an absolute beaut of a free-kick a millimetre inside De Gea’s right-hand post. Some, like Gary Neville, will argue that De Gea shouldn’t have taken his little step to the left, like so many keepers do, but even if he hadn’t he would have found it hard to save. Mata could have scored again a minute later when, with United on the ropes, a dodgy clearance from De Gea went straight to Oscar, who played a quick pass to Torres who then found Mata but the Spaniard could only poke the ball against De Gea’s legs. In the resulting clearance Fernando Torres kicked Tom Cleverley in the chest with some force. It was clear that in the excitement of going for an equaliser Torres was just keen to get the ball back, but we have seen straight reds given before for that kind of reckless challenge. Given the circumstances I think it was just about the right decision.

The second half started much the same as the first ended, Chelsea on top and looking to equalise. United were the architects of their own downfall, sitting far too deep and they paid the price for this 8 minutes into the second half. Juan Mata latched onto a beautiful through ball by the brilliant Brazilian Oscar but couldn’t quite bring it down for a shot, his cross was just too high for Torres but Oscar collected and floated a perfect ball back into the box for Ramires to head home for the equaliser. Ramires was being marked by Tom Cleverley, but the Englishman gives away two inches two the Brazilian and this showed. For a while it seemed that Chelsea would go on to make it 3-2 but then everything changed. At this point we begin to leave football and enter the sort of unfortunate realm which will completely detract from a hitherto fantastic encounter by two of the country’s most exciting football teams. 10 minutes after the Chelsea equaliser Robin Van Persie played Ashley Young through on goal, Young’s pace was too much for his marker Branislav Ivanovic who, despite doing his best to get out of the way, definitely clipped the heels of Young and, being the last man, could not argue when Mark Clattenburg showed him a red card. The resulting free kick from Rooney went close to Cech’s goal but never looked like it was going to go in, even if it had been on target. Only 5 minutes later things started to get really contentious. 

Just as it looked as if Di Matteo was going to bring on Daniel Sturridge for Fernando Torres, ‘El Niño’ was sent off as well. When I first saw Torres get sent off I couldn’t believe it, then watching the first replay I made my mind up it was a certain dive and a definite red card, having watched it dozens of times since and speaking to a few hundred people about it I’m still not sure. It looks like Jonny Evans’ toe grazes the top of Torres’s boot, so minimal contact then, but minimal contact is still contact. What it boils down to is do you think someone should be booked if they feel ‘minimal contact’ and decide to go down. Maybe, maybe not, the FA rules are very unclear; 

“If a player attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled (simulation).
To deal with simulation the referee should know the difference between: a tackle (challenging for the ball and touching it), no action; a foul made by the defender, free kick or penalty kick and disciplinary sanction if needed; a simulation (attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled), yellow card; a fall (no attempt to deceive the referee), no action.”

Torres went down clutching his foot despite barely being touched, which would class as “feigning injury,” but no one gets booked for that so we can rule that out. Watching it again it is very hard to argue that Torres could not have continued running, the unnatural way he falls shows that he probably chose to fall. Would he have been affected if he had continued? We will never know. In the post-match interview Alex Ferguson says that he doesn’t know why Torres chose to go down. I do, Rio Ferdinand was going to get the ball, or at least get a tackle in. Torres saw his opportunity and went down. When I started writing this I thought that by the time I had reached this incident I would have made my mind up. I still haven’t. Was it a ‘fall’ or ‘simulation’? Chelsea fans will say there was contact and feel aggrieved, Manchester United fans will feel justified given the possible red card from the first half.

A controversial goal from Hernanadez
sealed win for United
(Courtesy of gordonflood.com - Flickr)

Unbelievably that probably wasn’t the most controversial decision of the game. Just over 5 minutes later a Robin Van Persie shot forced a brilliant save from Cech which rolled onto the post, the resulting clearance was blasted back into the box by Rafael and turned into the goal by Javier Hernandez, the man who is always in the right place at the right time. Except this time. His whole body was offside when Rafael played the ball back in. The only assumption we can make is that the linesman was watching the ball at the time that he should have been looking at Hernandez because it is very difficult to miss that one if you’re looking the right way. Cech was kind of in his line of vision but still, an important decision that needed to be made correctly and wasn’t. In the ensuing 20 minutes Antonio Valencia was booked for diving and also should have scored just before the final whistle but with 9 men there was no real way back into the game for Chelsea and 3-2 it stayed.

When I read that Chelsea had lodged a complaint against Mark Clattenburg I thought that it wasn’t terribly surprising, then I read it was for racist comments. You might say that this sounds like sour grapes but that is a massive claim to make just because you are feeling bitter and if you had no real evidence, so based on this I would have to say that there is something there. On the other hand you would literally have to be the most stupid man in the country to make racist comments given the high profile racism cases that we have had recently and also because Clattenburg has 3 others listening to every word he says on his microphone headset. Perhaps Mark Clattenburg is the most stupid man in the country, there will certainly be a few Chelsea fans who support this theory based on the evidence of last night, but I don’t think so. So perhaps someone misheard something, perhaps Mark Clattenburg did something completely, ridiculously inexcusable and lost his rag and said something racist. Perhaps we will never know.

In summary this was a disappointing game. Not for the brilliant football it produced in the first 60 minutes, but for the fact that the brilliant football will be forgotten. This game will hang over everyone’s heads for the rest of the season, make no mistake about that, but let’s hope that this result cannot serve as a talking point come the final game.