It was one of those games which we could have ended up losing. And losing badly. We were lucky, and my thoughts went with Torres. That miss in the second half would haunt him for the rest of his career.
On the whole, Chelsea did not play badly. They did what they had to do, and was still down three by halftime. United's first was offside, second was another off side, but the shot itself deserved a goal - a mother of all thunderbolt off Nani - and the third was a fluky bounce, falling down invitingly for our man Rooney. We had it easy.
AVB did something almost unthinkable. He replaced Lampard at halftime, and putting Mata in the middle seemed to make Chelsea tick. And ticked they did. Anelka opened up the defense, exposing the inexperience of Phil Jones within half a minute of the restart. And United were on the back foot since.
Poor Torres ......
In preparation, I went to NZ as usual for the Tandoori and Mee Ladna take-outWe were given a lifeline when Nani hit the woodwork and was fouled in the area when he pounced on the rebound. Rooney, slipped on his standing foot, and missed. That goal would have made such a difference, restoring the three goal cushion. As it stood, pressure was mounting on United's young shoulder, and we were exposed a few times.
Then came THE miss. Torres was put through, rounded the keeper, but skewed the tap in on his unfavoured left peg. That would have made the last 15 minutes more interesting.
Not only that we were lucky, but Liverpool self-destructed, and Citeh gave away a two goal lead to just come away with a point from Craven Cottage. We were standing two points clear this morning, taking maximum points from the first five games. And it made such a refreshing change that we stopped talking about De Gea for a start.
