Chelsea, you can buy everything but class

THIS is getting seriously creepy now. It’s weird enough that Arsenal are repeating our 2004/05 moment for moment. Local rivals in fourth, crossing every finger hoping you fail every round.

Their captain and best player constantly linked with pastures new, Juventus meekly surrendering in the last eight.

Now we beat the champions in a semi final thanks to Garcia, with a late sitter missed by one of their divers in the 33rd minute of injury time, followed by Mourinho’s marvellously repellent outburst.

If we’re 3-0 down in Cardiff don’t panic! I had my mind on bigger things last week, so never really got into pre-semi wind-up mode. Others made up for that of course, the managers throwing their toys out of the pram and usually in the direction of their counterpart’s forehead.

It’s all mightily tedious. My mate’s wedding also distracted me, especially after his bizarre decision to make me his best man. Have pity on the second-best, what must he be like?

I thought the flight to Istanbul was nerve-wracking but this was just awful. Making a speech in front of total strangers while dressed as Di’s butler is not an invitation to fun-time.

They ended up having a fantastic day though, and the evening was even better. So, hours later we’re storming down the motorway to Salford and that was when I began to think about the game, despite the cacophonous drum solo rattling around my head and the pain behind the eyes. I’m getting too old for this sort of indulgence.

Having arrived far too early we encamped at the same quayside bar we’ve driven past on many an away day. For a change faces smiled back and half-empty glasses remained in hand.

We grabbed a few cans from a grubby, sweltering beer tent (no expense spent) and sat by the canal in the sunshine.

Over by Sam Platt’s we could hear the usual songs being belted out, especially the Manc ones that make you wonder if Charles Darwin wasn’t the biggest fraud in scientific history.

It wasn’t turning out to be such a great day. I was still a little delicate from the day before, got splattered with cider after a stray football knocked my friend’s can flying, and picked up my ticket only to discover I was in the normal ‘away’ section.

70,000 seats, and here I was in the same place I always go. I couldn’t help feeling a little cheated, and by now the nerves were kicking in again.

Once inside I was absolutely deafened by United’s PA. What twerp decided a football ground should be like a rock concert? Only in Manchester.

Then came You’ll Never Walk Alone and what felt like the megamix of Blue Is The Colour — all at Motorhead volume. Before a ball had been kicked, the difference in class between the clubs was palpable.

That slowly surely and amazingly began to transfer itself to the pitch, with a little help from our mate Didier obviously.

Our policy of first-goal-wins continued thanks to Riise and (belatedly) Garcia. What an annoying little bugger he is.

Ten people I’ve discussed the game with said exactly the same thing: seconds before the goal, they’d been screaming at Rafa to get him off the pitch before he did any more damage.

But that’s two finals in two years and Garcia’s got us to both of them. Kewell was excellent, we only looked in serious trouble when he left. Now there’s 12 words I’ve waited a long time to use.

If I’d been nervous before my speech the 25 minutes after Reina punched Drogba (perfectly understandable) stretched everything to breaking point. Long passages of Chelsea possession are not good for Liverpudlians.

We need the sort of exercises opera singers use. Terry (“booooooo”) to Lampard (“boooooo”) to Essien (“boooooo”) to Robben (“boooooooo”), by which time several people by me were looking decidedly queasy. Pace yourselves, folks!

We got there in the end, thanks largely to an appalling miss by perennial sniper victim Cole. Bedlam ensued, and while nothing will ever match the Champions League victory for intensity and joy this came a very close second.

We could get used to this. The risible outpourings of their manager only gilded the lily, in the same way Ferguson’s red-faced bitterness made the fifth round victory sweeter still.

So much nonsense to sift through but “every decision against us”? Oh please.

He had a fair few sycophants swallowing this gibberish though, largely because everyone has now accepted the new John Terry Rules.

Barge who you like, clamber with impunity, foot up means head height, second goalkeeper status and so on ad nauseam. It’s a seismic shock when they don’t get their own way.

Poll was awful, but Chelsea’s diving is scientific. Referees never follow the rules; they observe a spurious code of neutrality and fairness.

Which assumes all teams play the same way. They don’t. If you fall every single time you will get some of the doubt no matter how salmon-like your behaviour.

Will it mean that every club eventually has to fight fire with fire? God, I hope not.

The recitation of the divergent point tallies was a new low even by Mourinho’s subterranean standards.

What purpose did it serve, except to shine a blistering spotlight on his tactical shortcomings, and not for the first time this year.

This wasn’t self-sacrifice — it was self-interest.

Trizia can call for neutral support all she likes — they ain’t ever gonna get it, and Saturday evening provided plenty of reasons why not.

I’ll say it slowly. You. Can’t. Buy. Class.

I’m doubly ecstatic because Wembley isn’t ready yet and Cardiff has been good to us. It will be nice to go there one more time.