Billed as the title decider for months, this match ended up only being for bragging rights. Chelsea’s tie versus Arsenal on Sunday gave the championship to Manchester United, and made the game moot. Well, you would have thought it moot or useless, but the players saw fit to make it quite an entertaining game (if not pretty from Manu’s perspective).

With the title having already been decided, both bosses decided to rest many of their starters (in preparation for the real war to come).

Starting Lineups:

Chelsea   Manu
Carlo Cudicini (G)   Tomasz Kuszczak (G) *
Wayne Bridge (D)   Wes Brown (D)
Paulo Ferreira (D)   Gabriel Heinze (D)
John Terry (D)   Kieran Lee (D) *
Lassana Diarra (M)   John O’Shea (D)
Michael Essien (M)   Chris Eagles (M) *
Claude Makelele (M)   Darren Fletcher (M)
John Mikel (M)   Kieran Richardson (M) *
Shaun Wright-Phillips   Fangzhou Dong (S) *
Salomon Kalou (S)   Alan Smith (S)
Scott Sinclair (S)   Ole Gunnar Solksjaer (S) *
 
* not regular United starters or not starting in the last several matches.

I called this an entertaining affair, but it wasn’t because of the stellar play of the team. After all, United only had 6 shots – none actually on goal. They only managed to earn one corner kick and had to make 9 saves (to Chelsea’s one). The fun in this game was the ferocity of the play. With most of the players being “non-regulars”, everyone played hard in an effort to catch the gaffer’s eye. Add to that the general bad blood between the two clubs and there were 33 fouls – 7 earning yellow cards. Two fouls (one on each side) could have easily been red cards.

Manchester really only had two good scoring opportunities. The first was late in the first half (about 37′), when Gabriel Heinze came sliding in in front of the goal, but tipped the Alan Smith pass wide of the goal. The second great (non) chance never got the opportunity to happen due the poor refereeing. Chris Eagles was fouled, quite obviously to everyone but Poll, in the box by Essien. As I cheered the upcoming PK, the whistle never blew and play continued.

Eagles, seeing red (no pun intended) for the lack of the call, then lost his head and came flying into a tackle on Shaun Wright-Phillips. He was lucky to receive only a yellow card. That Rooney-esque retalliation was the one dark spot on an otherwise brilliant night for Eagles. The work rate from the youngster, in my humble opinion, is phenominal. Only Ji Sung Park is busier on the field, but Park is not as productive by a mile.

In the 65′ minute Michael Carrick was brought on for Heinze. In the 73′ minute Wayne Rooney replaced Dong. Neither substitution made much of a difference as United hardly got a sniff of the goal. Instead, the focus shifted to defending and holding on to the point. Chelsea made a go of it, throwing everything they had at United, but they held firm – with Lee even taking one off the goal line to deny Chelsea’s Sahar a goal.

Chelsea were definitely the stronger team on paper, but the Red Devils managed to keep them out of the net by sheer will alone.

One note that should be mentioned. When the game began, Chelsea arranged for an honor guard. Their players lined the sides as Manchester United entered the stadium. Class.

A couple of random thoughts on this one:
Kuszczak made the job of goal keeping look like a 3-ring circus today. When he didn’t have time to think, his reactions were sparkling and he made some really good saves. The problems were when he had time to decide what to do… he tended to always make the wrong decision. Please, oh please, let’s see Ben Foster soon.

Kieran Lee looked strong – had a nice goal line save to his credit as well. From the little I’ve seen of him, he appears to be a very smart player. Doesn’t have a lot of size or speed, but at least for this game showed brains.

Solksjaer continued his recent string of lackluster performances. I can only recall seeing him in one or two plays.

Eagles! Now, this kid looks exciting. Was extremely busy and productive. I want to see more of him — Please Sir Alex??