Chelsea 0 - 0 United …
A dress rehearsal for the FA Cup final, in which it was easier to count the number of studs on shins than goal attempts, ended in a statelemate at Stamford Bridge.
Both managers chose to leave their biggest guns on the bench or in the stands. Of the players who took the field, only Chelsea had the wit and imagination to carry the game to their opponent, a task which they followed only at half steam.
United by contrast were poor and offered very little in the way of forward fluency or penetration. Sir Alex will be happy to come away from the match with his team unbeaten and with a little bit more knowledge about his players.
On-loan sticksman Tomasz Kuszczak rarely convinces and again looked an unreliable goalkeeper despite some good parries and saves. Ben Foster is due to return next season and Edwin Van Der Sar, shaky of late, might still have another year left, so is the Pole really necessary? He is a decent shotstopper but is all at sea when asked to deal with crosses.
Up front, the Chinese Dong had nothing to sing about on his first-team debut and was befuddled by the task of mixing it with John Terry and Michael Essien. It seems mighty unfair to write off the player after just one appearance but as first impressions are lasting, Dong looked out of his depth in this class of football.
The match began with the meaninglessness of an end of season fixture where nothing was at stake. There was no urgency to either side and in United’s case, no pattern or rhythm to the play, given the unfamiliar nature of the starting line-up.
Chelsea were first to hit something approaching their stride and might have taken the lead on six minutes when Shaun Wright-Phillips raced though towards goal, after a fine through ball by John Obi Mikel. The winger could not direct his shot past the advancing Kuszczak.
That was the last meaningful effort of the half as both sets of players saved their energy and sought to avoid the personal duel between Alan Smith and John Obi Mikel as to whom would be sent off first.
Yorkshireman Smith seems to need a booking to settle him down in a match and on two occasions might have been cautioned by a referee less lenient that Graham Poll. The Nigerian Obi Mikel, decided to take matters into his own hands and should have been dismissed for a high and outrageous lunge at Chris Eagles in the 20th minute.
Had such energy been channelled into attacking ambition, the crowd might have had something to cheer. United fans were briefly roused in the 36th minute when Gabriel Heinze popped up in the box to slice a volley wide, after receiving a Smith header from a corner.
The second half was baptised by a series of fouls which took the game to new depths. Brown received a yellow card for a challenge on young Blues winger Sinclair which broke the player’s metatarsal. The defender then went a little towards redeeming himself by twice clearing dangerous Chelsea in-swingers from Wright Philipps.
Red spirits were briefly raised by a strong United shout for a penalty on 56 minutes after Eagles was felled in the box by Essien. Denied justice, Eagles, a minute later, jumped into a tackle on Wright Philipps with his studs showing, an aggression which should have earned the winger an early bath.
In the remaining minutes, there was some dreadful flapping on crosses from Kusczak, some home huffing and puffing around the box, a goal line clearance from Lee, a dangerous slalom by Joe Cole, which he finished with a weak shot wide of the post and some substitutions.
Yes, it was that kind of game.
Team
United: Kuszczak, Lee, Brown, O’Shea, Heinze (65 Carrick), Richardson, Smith, Fletcher, Solskjaer, Eagles, Dong (72 Rooney)
Subs: Van Der Sar, Scholes, Ferdinand,
Post Script
Sir Alex:”I have to be pleased at the result, some of the performance was good at times but we tired in the last 15 minutes; players like Kieran Lee, Chris Eagles and Dong (Fangzhuo) were spent forces by the end.”
Jose Mourinho: “If somebody has to win, we had more chances, we dominated more and showed more ambition to win the game but the result is not important. The draw is a fair result and is what normally happens in these matches.”
