United drive Scolari to edge of precipice

Manchester United 3 Chelsea 0

By Sam Wallace, Football Correspondent

Monday, 12 January 2009

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GETTY IMAGES

Wayne Rooney scored for United in a three-nil win against Chelsea

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His diminished fortune tells us Roman Abramovich never saw the credit crunch coming, but maybe he predicted a similar collapse of epic proportions yesterday and for that reason stayed away from Old Trafford. His Chelsea team staggered off this pitch, any pretension of parity with Manchester United smashed to bits. The defeat was so savage that, at times, it felt like the end of the line for Luiz Felipe Scolari.

That is what will have crossed Jose Mourinho's mind, watching from the directors' box: he would have got sacked for a result like this. Not just the result but the sheer hopelessness of the performance, the slackness with which goals were conceded to Nemanja Vidic, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov, the speed with which Chelsea faded as United took the lead before half-time. In the Champions League final in May they came back at United in the second half, yesterday they just lay down and died.

Scolari's team are still one point ahead of United, but United have two games in hand and it is most certainly Sir Alex Ferguson's team who occupy the fast lane– just as long as Cristiano Ronaldo is not in charge of overtaking. Scolari looks utterly isolated, his billionaire employer staying away, only the teenager Franco Di Santo to call upon in the late stages when he opted for a third striker. How long will Abramovich be interested in owning a team that is going backwards?

After the game Scolari will have been obliged to meet Ferguson in his office along with two other visitors to Old Trafford yesterday. Just to cap a dreadful day for the Brazilian, those two men were Mourinho and Carlos Queiroz, both of whom he detests, but the man he must really feel like strangling will have been sitting on the other side of the desk. Ferguson has stolen the day again, he looks like he might yet claim the whole season.

If Ferguson could feel generous to these three men then it is because his most recent bête noire has had an appalling 72 hours. Rafael Benitez called it on with Ferguson on Friday, watched his team let him down at Stoke City on Saturday and then saw United play like champions yesterday – the Liverpool manager's latest kidney stone operation today will be painless in comparison.

Benitez will know now that when it comes to knifing Ferguson, timing is everything – and his timing stinks. "Disturbed" is how Ferguson described Benitez, and a performance of this magnitude will no doubt have been disturbing for any Liverpudlian.

United's best player was Ryan Giggs, at 35 years old a controversial choice ahead of Michael Carrick for a game of this magnitude, but a decisive presence in the centre. Jonny Evans, in for the injured Rio Ferdinand, was excellent. Rooney was irrepressible. They are gaining a familiar momentum as the season heats up.

In one extraordinary sequence of play United sprung an ingenious move to create a goal which was disallowed just before Vidic's opener. Rooney went to the corner, rolled the ball two yards into play and then nonchalantly jogged away without a Chelsea player noticing. Giggs said subsequently that Rooney told him "I've taken a short one" as Giggs came over to take the corner. Instead of taking the corner Giggs dribbled the ball at goal, crossed it and, with Chelsea bemused, Ronaldo headed in.

The linesman, Darren Cann, disallowed the goal because Rooney had not told him that he had put the ball into play. The interesting aspect is that linesmen only stand by the corner flag on the corners taken on their side of the pitch. Had the corner been on the opposite side, there would have been no linesman by the flag. What then? It would have been attracted more controversy had United not then preceded to take Chelsea apart, bit by bit. Seconds after Ronaldo's goal was disallowed, Giggs' retaken corner was headed on by Berbatov and put in at the back post by Vidic in first-half injury time. There had been a period in the middle of the first half when Rooney strained to keep his temper and Ronaldo looked at his dismissive, complaining worst. He shoved Ricardo Carvalho and then, from the chaos, United took control of the match.

Chelsea have not been beaten by a three-goal margin since they lost to Middlesbrough in February 2006 and then they were cruising at the top of the league. They drifted into anonymity yesterday. Frank Lampard was booked in the first minute and was hesitant after that. Didier Drogba miskicked one shot so far wide that it went out for a throw-in. John Terry was cheered by the United fans for every touch, a mocking gesture of thanks from Old Trafford for his missed penalty in Moscow.

The sideshow was Carlos Tevez's second half warm-up on the touchline, cause for rapturous applause from the United fans that was milked by the Argentine. It was designed to remind Ferguson he wants a permanent deal. Judging by Ferguson's decision not to bring Tevez on, he was not impressed.

Scolari sent on Nicolas Anelka for the hopeless Deco at half-time and, with Chelsea's midfield reduced to four, United dominated.

Will Scolari lose his job as Chelsea manager by the end of the season?

Ronaldo played in Patrice Evra who crossed for Rooney, he stuck his foot between Ashley Cole's legs and clipped in the second. Chelsea's descent from mediocrity to ineffectiveness was steep. They did not have a single shot on target before Berbatov scored the third from Ronaldo's cross in the 87th minute.

It was telling that Di Santo, marking Berbatov at the corner, was stopped from tracking the striker by Vidic's crafty block. Judging by the whispered conversation between the two United men, it was all planned. Vidic against the 19-year-old Di Santo is, in football parlance, men against boys. The game had looked that way long before that moment.

Goals: Vidic (45) 1-0; Rooney (63) 2-0; Berbatov (87) 3-0

Manchester United (4-4-2): Van der Sar; Neville, Vidic, Evans, Evra (O'Shea 65); Ronaldo, Fletcher, Giggs (Carrick 80), Park; Berbatov, Rooney. Substitutes not used: Kuszczak (gk), Anderson, Scholes, Welbeck, Tevez.

Chelsea (4-1-4-1): Cech; Bosingwa (Belletti 64), Carvalho, Terry, A Cole; Mikel; J Cole (Di Santo 85), Ballack, Lampard, Deco (Anelka ht); Drogba. Substitutes not used: Cudicini (gk), Ivanovic, Ferreira, Kalou.

Referee: H Webb (South Yorkshire)

Booked: Manchester United Ronaldo, Rooney; Chelsea Lampard, Bosingwa, Carvalho, Terry, Belletti.

Man of the match: Giggs.

Attendance: 74,455