coming to rest firmly in Manchester United rsquo;s corner. Chelsea will strive with all their considerable might to get it moving again, but know they missed their last chance in the Stamford Bridge sunshine, conceding two Just after 1.20 at lunchtime, with United losing 2-0 to Everton and Chelsea 2-1 up, the odds had shifted towards the defending champions, but an hour later Kevin Davies had equalised to earn Bolton a draw, United had rattled headlines screaming at them that their manager, the estimable Sam Allardyce, planned to quit at the end of the season, but they applied themselves with their usual muscular commitment, which was good enough to thwart opponents European and FA Cups.
Yesterday, Jose Mourinho felt obliged to rest his two main goalscorers, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard with Tuesday rsquo;s decisive Lampard was on after 29 minutes and Drogba at half-time. Too late? Not really.
In fairness to the Chelsea manager, it has to be said that his team selection was not to blame for this desperately damaging result. Chelsea scored twice, which is usually more than enough to guarantee maximum points. Their problem own, and in this respect Mourinho was culpable.
When Chelsea lost Ricardo Carvalho, the man he has lauded as his best defender, midway through the first half he chose to replace him at centre-back, not with Khalid Boulahrouz, who was on the bench, but by moving Michael Essien from midfield. His intentions were positive, he was looking for Essien to play the ball out from defence, but Boulahrouz is not only four inches taller but a specialist centre-half, and would have been better suited to combat the For the capacity crowd it was an emotional roller-coaster from the start. They erupted after 14 minutes, when the electronic scoreboard revealed United had fallen behind, but the cheers choked in 40,000 throats five minutes later when, from a free kick on the left, Andranik Teymourian crossed and yards.
It was a bad goal from the defensive viewpoint, the marking conspicuous by its absence, but Chelsea were soon making encouraging progress down their own left flank, where Wayne Bridge profited from the absence of Nicky Hunt, which forced Allardyce to deploy Ivan Campo out of position, at right-back. Campo is a central defender or midfield anchor-man Chelsea drew level from one of them in the 22nd minute, Salomon Kalou heading Ukrainian rsquo;s volley over the bar. At this stage, Carvalho had just limped off, but his loss seemed unlikely to affect the outcome when, in the 34th minute, Lampard rsquo;s corner from the right was met at the far post by Kalou, whose header unhinged the Bolton defence.
In attempting to clear off the line, Idan Tal succeeded only in nodding the ball against the underside of the crossbar, from where it bounced down and in via Jaaskelainen rsquo;s leg. Mourinho sent on Drogba in place of Shevchenko at the interval, in search of the two-goal cushion that would have made the game safe, but nine minutes into the second half Bolton were level, when another free-kick and right-wing cross from Tal was headed in, unopposed, by Davies. Cue mounting desperation among Mourinho and company.
Drogba was tantalisingly close with a 25-yard free kick, but even with Joe Cole on, for Lassana Diarra, and the crowd imploring ldquo;attack, attack, attack rdquo;, Chelsea were unable to respond cohesively. They have a habit of pulling irons from the fire at the death, but it never looked like happening, and seven minutes from the end Mourinho gesture that said it all. ldquo;Big Sam rdquo; had ruined not just his day this time, Have the club got off lightly with a record fine?
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