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Being Ruud About It

There are times when I wish I could literally throw a boot in Mr. Mourinho’s face if it would wipe the smirk off his face. Ah… the joy, the great serene satisfaction…I can almost taste it.

It has been more than a week since our narrow loss at the Wembley. Too bad, I’d have said, with a shrug and a sigh on any other day, but after brooding over that final for a week, I still can’t digest it.

We lost a game that was fairly equal. Nobody can deny that we had decent possession, and created enough chances. The game in the midfield, until the dying moments, was quite evenly pitted. I simply fail to understand how, despite all this, the media bend over backwards to praise the Portuguese Mourinho and his minions.

Agreed, Drogba took a good shot. Agreed Lampard got a very decent touch to flick the ball on. And certainly agreed, that JO’S was ball-watching. We lost to a fair goal. What isn’t agreeable is the fact that our friends in the press have completely forgotten the thirty yard pass that almost setup Giggs. Or the incredible work that the team did in calmly clearing threatening attacks from the so-called superstars (Hmph!).

The hypocrisy is evident from the way that Ronaldo was quartered for being unable to show his bit of wizardry. They completely forgot that he was being man marked by a midfielder and a defender. They completely gave the terrible toll of the season here a grand ignore while, at the same time, they were all sympathetic to the cause of our dear Mr. Disappear-Cole or the incredibly overpriced Kalou. What Lampard was doing till that lucky fluke of a flick-on looked more to me like twiddling thumbs than working hard to batter down the defense.

In fact the only thing that has kept Chel$ki running along this season was Drogba’s rabbits-from-the-hat. If we take a good look at the Russian circus, they managed to ‘grind out’ results in the dying minutes of almost every other league game and cup game. The entire game plan has been to tire out oppositions first, and then, when everyone is too bored to do anything but dig their noses, to free Drogba to score ‘wonder’ goals.

That Mourinho’s men played like dunderheads (excepting Drogba and Essien) there is little doubt. Even so, the sad fact remains that we lost to the same strategy. That we couldn’t make the brilliance of Scholes and Carrick count. That we don’t have a goal machine upfront. That we miss Ruud.