Monday, August 10, 2009

The Community Shield

Chelsea 2 Man Utd 2 (Chelsea win 4-1 on penalties)

United took the lead early on after Nani scored a well taken shot, dribbling past two Chelsea defenders. Chelsea came back in the second half with two goals from Ricardo Carvalho and Frank Lampard only for Wayne Rooney to equalize in
injury time. Peter Cech saved two poorly taken penalties from Giggs and Evra to lead Chelsea to their 4th Community Shield win. It was probably a poor choice to let Evra take a penalty with likes of Rooney and Owen available as he was clearly too wound up from his altercations with Michael Ballack earlier in the game. Chelsea's second goal was cause for great debate and the manager had this to say.


Sir Alex Ferguson:

"If the referee sees it properly it is a red card," said Ferguson."He has clearly elbowed him. The referee had a clear view of it, he was in line, he should have seen it." Ballack appearedto obstruct Evra, who went down injured, but the referee did not award a foul and as play continued Frank Lampard scored. The referee made a rod for his own back," added Ferguson.
"He stopped play twice, once when Nani was tackled, then on the second occasion Ballack went down, which we've seen before"
"The referee said it was a serious incident when Ballack went down but he was up straight away. So I don't understand why he didn't do it with Evra. "When you see the replay you see Ballack has elbowed him but it's hard to blame the Chelsea players for carrying on. It's a professional game."

Carlo Ancelotti:

"A referee can stop the play and also the players can put out the ball," stated Ancelotti. "They didn't see Evra on the pitch so they continued. If they had seen him a Chelsea player would have put the ball out."

He added "We need to improve further but I like our mental attitude and we're ready to start a very important season.""United will be the most important opponent in the Premier League because they are a great team. "In the first half, Manchester played very well and we didn't play for 30 minutes."We improved in the second half because we put more strength on the field and we deserved to win. We have to improve because we changed a little bit the play of the team and we still have to work."
But Ancelotti denied reports that Chelsea are to sign Brazilian Pato from AC Milan for £45m
"It is not true because Pato is a Milan player," said the Italian."He is a young player and Milan believe a lot in Pato. They sold Kaka' and now Pato is an important player for them"

Well it looks to be a very interesting season. My firm favourites for the title would be Chelsea but I just have this feeling that it just might be Wenger's year.

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