affkey=”40d0199a534040bdcc5cadf4a3d07ce9″;boxid=5976;
Manchester United opened up a four-point gap on Arsenal and a startling 15-point one on Chelsea with the most predictable of wins at Wigan, who have now played 13 games against Sir Alex Ferguson’s side since 2005 and lost every time. Even with one eye on their trip to Chelsea on Tuesday United still managed their usual landslide – they have now scored 41 goals against these most obliging of opponents – though in fairness Wigan only let their heads drop in the last 10 minutes.
Roberto Martínez’s players gave a good account of themselves in the first half and could consider themselves slightly unlucky to be trailing by a single goal at the break, yet this was only the first of three successive away games for United in the coming week and, though they used it sparingly, the visitors always had an edge in quality that was likely to tell. With Dimitar Berbatov rested Javier Hernández stepped up with a couple of neat finishes, and though Wayne Rooney was booed throughout after catching James McCarthy with a needless elbow early on, a striker still clearly out of sorts nevertheless set up his side’s first two goals and scored the third.
“We didn’t take our chances and Manchester United punish you for that,” Martínez said. “It might have been a different matter had they gone down to 10 men. The referee told me at half-time that Rooney had just clipped James and it did not warrant a red card, but if you see a replay it is clearly an elbow and Rooney was very fortunate to escape a red card. The referee must have seen it because he gave a free-kick. Had one of my players done that I’m not sure he would have been so lucky.”
Ferguson tried to play down the incident, anticipating pressure being put on the FA to take retrospective action. “It was next to nothing,” the United manager said. “Mark Clattenburg saw it and said it was an accident.”
Ferguson also admitted that Wigan were all over United for the first 20 minutes, although the opening goal perfectly illustrated the difference between the two sides. Not many wingers other than Nani would have even caught Rooney’s return pass up the left wing, but once he reached the pass Nani supplied a low cross that Hernández alertly read, nipping in front of Ali al-Habsi at the near post to dink the ball past the goalkeeper from a narrow angle.
One brief moment of class, and United were on their way. “It was a terrific finish, but that’s what he’s good at,” Ferguson said. “His percentage is very high.”
Wigan had had a much clearer opportunity to open the scoring four minutes earlier, when a mistake by Paul Scholes presented Victor Moses with a one-on-one chance to beat Edwin van der Sar. He could not take it. While the United goalkeeper stood tall to make a decent save, the finish could have been more convincing.
The home side could also have equalised immediately after United went in front, Van der Sar rushing from his line to smother a shot from McCarthy when a goal seemed certain from Hugo Rodallega’s clever backheel. So while the home side could conceivably have been 2-1 down at half-time they could also have turned round two goals up. On one of United’s isolated excursions upfield Nani rattled Al-Habsi’s post after taking an astute pass from Rooney.
Maynor Figueroa brought another save from Van der Sar with a powerful 30-yard drive in the second half, though for the most part Wigan were less incisive than they had been in the first. While there was only one goal in it there was still hope of an upset, but after Rooney and Darren Fletcher had missed opportunities Hernández’s second goal made the game safe a quarter of an hour from time.
The Mexican knocked a long clearance into Rooney’s path then just managed to stay onside to accept a well-timed return, making short work of sliding a low shot decisively beyond Al-Habsi. Moses, by now on the bench, could only look on with resignation.
With the game safe United began to make substitutions, and found fresh legs were all they needed to double their lead. First Darron Gibson found Berbatov in space for the Bulgarian to leave Rooney a tap-in, then Fabio came on for the last five minutes and scored his first goal for the club with virtually his first touch, collecting a cross at the far post and beating Al Habsi with a composed finish.
“The final score was not a true reflection of the game,” Martínez lamented, not for the first time this season. The table gives a true reflection of Wigan’s plight. With Wolves already out of the bottom three after beating Blackpool, a West Ham win this afternoon would leave Latics looking up at everyone else.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
Chelsea’s seeping staleness of mind cries out for a fresh approach
A team can become so settled they are stagnant. There was decay in a Chelsea line-up that could not quite see out a win over Everton in the FA Cup replay and lost on penalties. This is not purely a matter of grizzled footballers making their way to the shadows. The average age of Carlo Ancelotti’s selection was 28. The figure may be a little higher than is desirable but the real trouble lies with the dependence on a core group of long-established performers.
So it was that the main fillip to be found in the game with Everton was the sharp play of Frank Lampard, 32, who was evidently free of the calf strain that had hindered him earlier this year. Conversely, the failure to polish off the visitors was connected to the drabness of Didier Drogba, who was affected by malaria in the autumn and is the same age as the midfielder. Stagnation is not measured purely by studying birth certificates. Ancelotti should be steeped in the knowhow of his old club Milan and the expertise of a set-up once renowned for extending careers.
Keeping players in action is an achievement but purging the staleness of mind is an even more exacting challenge. Eight of Saturday’s starting line-up are in their fifth season or more with Chelsea.
Many of the squad have been through a great deal. While the defeat to Manchester United on penalties in the 2008 Champions League final was galling enough, the angst may have been deeper still the following year. Chelsea led until the last minute of the semi-final second leg when Andrés Iniesta scored the decisive away goal at Stamford Bridge for a Barcelona team reduced to 10 men by the dismissal of Eric Abidal.
Any footballer caught up in such distress will soon announce that it has only made him even more resolved to win the Champions League. The task, nonetheless, is getting steeper. That was underlined a year ago when Chelsea were eliminated in the last 16 as Internazionale won both legs of the tie. Their manager was, of course, José Mourinho, who had left Stamford Bridge when it seemed that his position was untenable once Avram Grant became director of football.
It was an episode that pointed to the convoluted nature of working at Chelsea. Mourinho is a winner of the Champions League with Porto as well as Inter and it is feasible that he will lay hands on the trophy for Real Madrid too. Shedding such a talent implied that any sense of perspective had vanished at Stamford Bridge. Despite that particular fiasco there should be no limit to the gratitude expressed by supporters to Roman Abramovich.
The Russian’s takeover of the club has seen him pay astonishing sums in his desire to make Chelsea the dominant force in football. Although the money was expressed as loans, the club itself is not liable for the total of £726m. After all that, Abramovich sees before him a side lying fifth in the table who cannot be sure of appearing in the Champions League next year. Regardless of the expenditure, Chelsea are still to renew themselves with a thoroughgoing dynamism.
That could be changing. Broadly speaking, the large sums quoted for the expenditure by Premier League clubs in the January transfer window were just the recycling of Chelsea’s outlay, with their £50m purchase of Fernando Torres allowing Liverpool the means to sign Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez. The available funds also saw Ancelotti take David Luiz from Benfica for £21.3m, despite his ineligibility for the Champions League.
It is hard to interpret Abramovich but he is unlikely to rebuild a squad at those sort of prices and has even acquired a reported affection for the financial regulations championed by Michel Platini that will stop a besotted owner from spending without restraint.
While David Luiz cannot take part, the advent of Torres should reinforce the bid for the Champions League that continues with the away leg against FC Copenhagen. It is to their benefit as well that the hosts are emerging from a winter break and lack competitive match practice.
Unlike most of the contenders, Chelsea have no other ambitions to pursue except that quest for the fourth slot in the Premier League. Torres has to be viewed as successor rather than partner to Drogba but an alliance between past and future that is effective for the next three months could be rewarding. Chelsea, too, can relish the novelty of being treated as outsiders for the Champions League, the last prize still craved by millionaire footballers and oligarch alike.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.