For the second time this season Manchester United lost to Chelsea in controversial circumstances with the officials’ decisions pivotal in handing Carlo Ancelotti’s side all three points. Chelsea’s 2-1 victory at Old Trafford, much like the Londoners 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge in November, earned with a goal that should never have been.
Substitute Didier Drogba’s 78th minute winner, lashed past Edwin van der Sar at the near post, stood despite the Ivorian being at least two yards offside. In November Chelsea profited from John Terry’s header following a highly dubious free-kick.
This time Mike Dean’s performance at Old Trafford was among the worst Sir Alex Ferguson’s side has suffered in recent months. The result, with just five games remaining, hands Chelsea a two point advantage in the Premier League title race with a superior goal difference to boot.
In truth United’s limitations, as they have been all season, stretched well beyond incompetent officialdom with the home side lacking either drive or invention during a first half that Chelsea dominated.
The home side struggled to retain possession for the second game in a row, with none of the home Ferguson’s three central midfielders able to create a platform for lone striker Dimitar Berbatov. On this evidence, it is not unfair to suggest time is catching up on the last of United’s golden generation, with Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville each poor.
Chelsea took the lead on 20 minutes with the superb Florent Malouda running past Darren Fletcher and Neville before delivering for Joe Cole to flick home the opener. It was no more than the visitors deserved for far greater endeavor.
Berbatov cut an isolated figure with neither Giggs, Antonio Valencia nor Park Ji-Sung able to get close enough to the Bulgarian to offer support. Yet Dean denied the South Korean a clear penalty after the Yuri Zirkov felled the midfielder inside the area on a rare foray forward by United.
Moments later and Chelsea could have added a second after goalscorer Cole put in Paulo Ferreira only for the defender’s shot to role inches wide.
With the half-time hairdryer suitably employed United finally took the game to Chelsea as the home side piled forward in search of an equaliser. On the hour Berbatov headed just wide from Giggs’ cross in United’s best effort of the match to that point.
But with Drogba held in reserve by Ancelotti the big striker was always going to have a say in the outcome. With 12 minutes remaining the former Marseille forward delivered Chelsea’s denouement. It mattered little to the visitors that Drogba was yards offside.
Federico Macheda’s goal, bundled in off his midriff minutes later, set-up a tense final 10 as United threw everything at Chelsea in the knowledge that defeat could mean the end of this season’s Premier League aspirations.
And with moments to go Berbatov missed a glorious chance to equalise.
Unsurprisingly Ferguson aimed his ire at both linesman and referee in the aftermath.
“The linesman was directly in front of him, there was not a soul near him and he gets it wrong,” Ferguson said.
“In a game of that magnitude, to get that wrong, it’s very poor.”
Referee Dean, who gave Blackburn a dubious penalty last weekend after a deliberate dive by Martin Olsson, has been under intense pressure this week and Ferguson, asked if this had affected the official, admitted his pre-match concern about about the Merseyside official’s appointment.
“You expect officials to get that one right,” added United’s assistant manager Mike Phelan.
“It was not even close. Their job is to keep their composure and they failed to do that.”
nothing wrong with the officals today – they made a few f@ck ups, however they balanced themselves out within 90 mins.
1) Park’s penalty shout was debatable
2) Anelka’s penalty shout was 100% stonewall!
3) Drogba WAS offside for goal #2
4) Macheda’s goal was HANDBALL, although I liked the way you conveniently missed this fact and used ‘midriff’ instead 😉
taking the above points into account, the game should have ended 0:1 with Scholes being shown a red card for continuously fouling.
Say you a Chelsea fan. I don’t agree with points 1, 2 or 4 at all.
ahhhh, now I understand and I bet Cole’s goal should have been disallowed because VDS wasn’t expecting him to score from that angle – right?
in fact, I reckon I’ve spotted you somewhere in yesterdays crowd:
http://data.fuskbugg.se/skalman01/ferguzzzon.jpg
😉
Well,
1.) Ji-Sung Park 100% penalty, Zhirkov red card !
2.) Yes, Nicolas Anelka penalty, debatable, but give him the benefit of the doubt. Yellow card Gary Neville…
3.) Dimitar Berbatov PENALTY, John Terry red card !
4.) 100% handball by Malouda, Jamie Carragher got booked and penalised for a lesser handball on Thursday, so Malouda should have been sent-off !
5.) Blatantly two-yards off-side by Didier Drogba, Sir Alex, 60 yards away could see it, and yet linesman five yards away can’t ? – WTF ?
6.) DEFINATLEY NOT a handball by Federico Macheda. Hits off his chest, brushes his arm, didn’t change direction. GOAL ! – Meanwhile John Terry is trying to cheat, again ! – Yellow for dissent !
So, had Mike Dean got all of the above decisions correct, then; 3 Chelsea Red Cards, Yellow for Gary Neville & John Terry, 3 United Penalties, 1 Chelsea Penalty, NO-GOAL DROGBA !
Final Score: Manchester United 4-2 Chelsea !
Macheda’s goal was off his hand. If you don’t agree with it then you are just being partisan. You can hardly expect a referee to agree with an entirely partisan view of the world, don’t be silly.
If it was Liverpool or any other team in the league you would acknowledge it was straightforward. Hansen said as much on MOTD tonight, and nobody in the studio disagreed at all.
The penalty shouts evened up, and so did the bad awardings of goals.
I wouldn’t expect any of the United hating scouse mafia in the MOTD studio to do anything other than a Chelsea PR job
I AM NO SUPPORTER OF EITHER CHELSEA OR MANCHESTER UNITED BUT WATCHING THE LEAGUE MATCH MAKES ME WONDER IF THE ENGLISH LEAGUE TITLE WILL BE DECIDED BY ONE ROTTEN REFEREE AND HIS EQUALLY INCOMPETENT SIDEKICKS IN THE TWO LINESMEN.
THE ENGLSH PRIDE THEMSELVES IN SAYING THAT EPL IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD.
IF YOU HAVE REFEREES WHO PERFORM LIKE THEY DID YESTERDAY, YOU SHOULD START THINKING OF USING INDIAN REFEREES(OUTSOUCING , SO TO SPEAK).
YOUR HOME GROWN PRODUCT DESERVES TO HAVE HIS WHISTLE TAKEN AWAY AND HIS BOTTOM THOROUGHLY SPANKED OR GIVEN A REWARD FOR
FOR A GREAT TRAGI-COMIC ROLE.
WHAT A POUT HE GIVES WHENEVER ANYONE QUESTIONS HIS DECISION.
YOUR EPL WILL BECOME A LAUGHING LEAGUE IF SUCH REFEREES ARE KEPT.
HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO REFEREE IN EVEN AN UNDER 15 MATCH IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY,
Mike Dean is a disaster. He should be debarged.
I think if we’re fair, the result probably deserved to be a draw (4-2? Please), but football isn’t fair and Chelsea took their chances. United, who were dominated in almost every facet of the match for about an hour, didn’t play well in the last third. Period.
And all this whining about penalties is pretty pointless, too. Neither non-decision changed the course of the match, especially in light of the non-decisions against Drogba and the missed call against Macheda.
For three halves of football this week, United just weren’t good enough, and the proof is in the results and in their lack of prowess in front of goal.
Dyl
1. Why does Zhirkov get red carded and neville a yellow?. Park was moving the ball away from goal and Chelsea had defenders back. Both were pens.
2. Beba penalty?? You worse than Dean you can’t even recognise the player who tackled him, which was lampard who got the ball 100% cleanly with Berba doing his best diving impression.
3. Handball – Under the laws of the game the ball has to hit an area from the top of the arm to the hand, it hit his chest!!
4. Drogba was a yard offside, should have been ruled out.
5. Macheda’s goal was handball of his chest and arm and then used his arm as a guide rail for the ball into the net!!
You could argue that Scholes and Neville could have seen red but that would have been harsh.
Instead of focussing your anger on a lino and ref, perhaps ask yourself the question were the no 1 club in the country has not made any signings to make up for the loss of Tevez! One massive mistake and hardly the fault of a referee!!
Pete – I deleted your offensive insult. Grow up.
Creative description of an incident we’ve all seen on the TV. Go check the rule book, it’s on the FA’s website. Handball must be deliberate.
OK point taken on the comment, but to print such a blinkered account does sometimes illicit over the top comments.
Actually Former Premier League referee David Elleray said the referee’s interpretation depends on whether the hand or arm is in an “unnatural” position at the point of contact.
Macheda brought his arm up to an unnatural position to enable him to score the goal.
They were by his side. Come on now we’ve all seen this at least 50 times. Little point carrying this on 🙂
Football needs to move with the times. Every other major sport uses some sort of video technology – its about football did too or they might as well have no offside rule or allow unregulated physical contact. RUBBISH!
Why is it people think video refs suddenly end all the problems? Everyone on this site has seen the plays in question dozens of times and there seems to be NO consensus on the calls, except the offside, which is basically a black or white thing.
So you take away Drogba’s goal? And what? Chelsea win 1-0. Because it can be argued that United went into an extra gear and got Macheda’s dubious goal precisely because of Drogba’s goal. United did not play well and did not do enough to win yesterday. Period.
Mike Dean was determined not to give a penalty- hasnt he given twice as many as any other referee or something like that. Its shocking that teams are made to suffer just because of his poor refereeing in OTHER matches.
Fault lies with useless linesman more than Dean.
What gets me is that though many (rightly) state how poor we were in first half – looking tired, leg-weary from Euro tie, etc etc – no one has concluded that Chelsea can’t be up to that much not to have put us well away by HT.
If the rent boys are all that many crack em up to be, then they should have gone in at least 4 up at the break – even more than Barca should have put Ars out of sight earlier in week.
Keep the faith. It ain’t over yet. In either competition.
The Macheda reply isn’t conclusive. Anyway game at SB should have been 0-0 will goal chalked off for no foul/offside/foul on Brown. Who had the most possession etc means nothing – its all about how many times you put the ball in the onion bag.