There has been one thing that has surprised me in reading the match reports of today’s match between United and Chelsea. Not Park being given a ‘6′ by most player ratings, when for me, he was probably our best, most determined player (and it seems I’m not alone, with the fan vote on MEN suggesting the same). Not the omission of the mention that Michael Ballack shoved Paul Scholes with two hands in the chest once the whistle had been blown. But the fact that Chelsea’s best chance of the game, other than the goal, being the result of blatant cheating from Joe Cole.
What did the press have to say?
The Times: There was always a nagging fear Joe Cole’s failure to find the net when he robbed Patrice Evra to give himself a clear sight of goal was going to prove costly.
The Guardian: There had nevertheless been signs that United were not watertight either, but Joe Cole missed the target when through on goal following a Nicolas Anelka flick.
Click here to see Cole control the ball with his arm before missing the target. It’s a bloody good job that he did miss, considering everyone is seemingly so blinded to his cheating, meaning he would have received full credit for it. I wonder, how selective is this blindness. Would the match reports have missed such a blatent handball if say, Cristiano Ronaldo was the guilty party…
Yeah, I thought that that was a handball, too. The announcers passed on it.
Overall, though, Joey Cole had an appalling game - he couldn’t find the target on three very good chances. Anelka, was absolutely anonymous and I was surprised he wasn’t substituted when they brought on Drogba, who didn’t do much but was a hand-full.
The game itself was rivetting, from the beginning to the very end. It was, as I wrote in commenting on another topic, kinda like a reprise of the CL final - we dominated them for the first thirty minutes and had a load of chances; the RentBoyz came on strong in the second half.
Fletcher, Hargreaves, and Park (Park, especially) were just terrific in the opening thirty minutes. Fletcher had a strong game and I think he made the pass-of-the-match when he kicked the ball with the outside of his right foot - diagonally, across the pitch - into Ronaldo’s path down the right wing. It was a piece of skill that was the more surprising because Darren Fletcherinho isn’t supposed to do things like that.
For me, the turning-point was the terrible shot by TheBoyWonder when he was alone on the edge of the penalty area after a pitch-length counter-attack. It was against the run-of-play but it could have put a nail in their coffin.
Fair dues to the RentBoyz, they kept UTD from doubling the lead and then got something of a gift for their goal - who was supposed to be marking Kalou ? He was in behind Rio but I don’t think he was Rio’s responsibility - it seemed to me that he got away from John O’Shea. Anyone have a better view of that breakdown ?