“Of course it was a penalty. In some countries it would have been two,” the tangerine-tanned one seethed. “I went to the fourth official and said: ‘You will have to bring more green shirts to give to the people in the Aston Villa dug-out, because they were controlling the game.”
He was understandably upset to be denied a pretty obvious penalty that could have retained his side’s their winning start to the season, but it is difficult to stand up his claims that Villa were getting the rub of the green. Rob Stiles’ ineptitude appeared to have no real bias, with both sides finding themselves on the wrong end of bizarre officialising.
The game had started with another unusual decision too. David O’Leary made no surprises with the composition of his midfield four, but his canny ordering of them, with Nolberto Solano joining the excellent McCann in the middle, and Gareth Barry and Thomas Hitlzsperger switching wings, unsettled the sluggish visitors and Villa had the better of the opening exchanges.
By the time Drogba heralded the change in onus, when he rattled the crossbar with a curling shot after some nice one-touch football by Chelsea, the game was already 25 minutes old. Mourinho’s men had the better of it from then, soaking up the occasional quick Villa attack before launching their own measured version. Chelsea do not have Arsenal’s knack of taking the ball from one end to the other in the blink of an eye.
With Mourinho’s preference of the disappointing Cole over Damien Duff, they don’t have Arsene Wenger’s men’s width either and Villa were rarely threatened with Chelsea attacking up the middle. Their best attacks were launched up the right when Drogba and Meteja Kezman took wide positions, but that left the team with no target man.
Villa never folded though and McCann in particular continued to force a presence in midfield. Indeed, after Tiago flashed a header past the far post, Villa had the best chance of the second period with 15 minutes remaining. Hendrie cleverly dummied JLloyd Samuel’s pass on the edge of the box, letting it run onto the lively Luke Moore, who scrambled the ball to Darius Vassell. Just five yards out, the England man missed the target under pressure from the covering defence.
It was a disappointing miss and five minutes later, the failure could have irked more when De la Cruz needlessly clipped the heel of Drogba. The Ivorian striker made a meal of the dive though and Stiles judged that he had simulated and took out the yellow card. Denied the penalty, Chelsea pushed hard for a late winner and but for the timely intervention of Mark Delaney’s head, Adrian Mutu’s lob would have allowed Drogba to do just that. From the resulting corner, substitute Eidur Gudjohnsen blazed over from a narrow angle but it wasn’t to be for Chelsea as Villa held on for the draw.
O’Leary later admitted his side were lucky with the penalty, but a squad of 14 senior players, they were always going to need fortune to pinch a result. And with a promising midfield display, it is difficult to say that the home side didn’t deserve that luck.
Player ratings:
Sørenson 5, De la Cruz 5, Delaney 7, Mellberg 7, Samuel 6, Solano 7 (Hendrie 57 mins, 6), McCann 8, Hitzlsperger 6, Barry 6, Vassell 6 (Whittingham 90 mins), Angel 5 (Moore 67 mins, 7)