Yes, it was clear. The referee of Chelsea v Manchester United game, Mike Riley, was in poor performance during the game and helped Chelsea by putting United’s players under the pressure of getting the second yellow card. Manchester United got only a point from today game at Stamford Bridge meaning United stayed without away win against Chelsea since 2002.
Park Ji-sung scored the only game for United in 18th minutes and Sir Alex side looked set to break Chelsea’s 84-game unbeaten home record in the league. But Salomon Kalou came from the bench to level the score after 80 minutes with a header after he was left unmarked by Berbatov to ensure the game ended all level.
Sir Alex Ferguson surprised all fans with his starting line-up. He kept Tevez, Brown and Nani on the bench while Ronaldo was expected to play in the second half. The game started with a total control from United players who missed many chances in the first half. One came when Rooney set up the ball to Ferdinand, only for the home keeper to save Rio effort with his legs.
Manchester‘s goal came when Evra played the ball to Berbatov who has a nice one-two with Rooney who send the ball to Berbatov behind the defence. Berbatov shot was parried by Cech. But it only reached Park who was unmarked and sloted home the rebound comfortably into the unguarded Chelsea net.
Van der Sar felt pain in his leg after a collision with Malouda inside the box, the event at where the referee started to change his was with United players!, he was replaced by Tomasz Kuszczak, who renewed his contract days ago, in the 32nd minute.
In the second half, Cristiano Ronaldo replaced Scholes. He did what he can to help the team to score, but Wayne Rooney and Darren Fletcher could not convert Ronaldo assists into goals.
Although we could not win the game, it is a good result as we were playing away against one of the top four teams. I am sure the team will score more goals soon as all injured players are back and Ronaldo starting to get his magician touch again.
I won’t talk much about the referee. It was clear that Mike Riley was in poor performance and he would give a yellow card for each player! Fergie was not happy with this and he believed that the game hasn’t that dirty tackles to see players getting warned for nothing!
“The game is being screened worldwide,” he reflected.
“Everyone is watching it and something like that goes on.
“It was a competitive game but I did not think there was one bad tackle in it.”
“People are saying, ‘What is going on here?’ but it is difficult to say anything about the referee,” added Ferguson. “I do not want to get involved.”
Was it a fair result?
