Sheva for the shove?

IT is just over three years since Andriy Shevchenko became a Champions League winner with AC Milan and just over two since he was named the European Footballer of the Year.

There is no other player in the Premiership who boasts such cast-iron credentials, and yet the Ukrainian is currently playing with all the conviction of a greenhorn stumbling and bumbling his way into an uncertain career.

Here are some more relevant statistics. Seven joyless months at Chelsea have yielded just six goals and it is now 616 minutes since he last scored in domestic football. On the basis of his astonishingly frail performance on Saturday, that tally is set to increase.

Shevchenko will view his failure to score against Macclesfield, officially the second worst professional club in England, and who played for almost all the second half with a defender in goal, with a mixture of horror, bemusement and — if his icy features mask a mischievous streak — wry humour.

It was not that he lacked effort. Shevchenko saw one shot brilliantly saved by David Morley, Macclesfield’s surprisingly adept stand-in, and he was also involved in the game’s pivotal incident, earning his team a penalty and a numerical advantage just after half-time by allowing himself be brought down by Tommy Lee, the Macclesfield goalkeeper. Arguably, his contribution sealed Chelsea’s place in the fourth round.

Yet that single moment also encapsulated the 30-year-old’s wafer-thin confidence. An in-form, hungry Shevchenko would have received Shaun Wright-Phillips’ canny through-ball, torn towards goal and belted the ball into the net before Lee had even become aware of the danger. But Shevchenko’s self-belief has withered like a discarded Christmas tree.

What he actually did was collect the pass and run straight at the onrushing Lee. At the last second, he pushed the ball to his right and waited for the inevitable foul. Penalty, red card, game over, and yet that one decision said more than a thousand words could about Shevchenko’s tormented state of mind.

In public, at least, Shevchenko is being supported by the men who matter at Stamford Bridge. Frank Lampard, whose hat-trick seemed to confirm that he had made it his personal mission to ensure Chelsea avoided embarrassment, issued some warm words, insisting it was only a matter of time before the goals returned.

More importantly, Jose Mourinho also offered his backing. The Portuguese’s recent pronouncement that Shevchenko was not one of his fabled “untouchables” would have sent a shiver down the striker’s spine, but on Saturday there was nothing but praise.

“I thought he played fine,” said Mourinho. “It is always frustrating for a striker to be on a team that wins 6-1 and he doesn’t score himself. But he worked hard and tried his best.

“In some other matches, perhaps I could not say this — he was accepting, without a fight, the bad moment that he is having now. But today he fought well.”

The cynics will say that for £30m, Mourinho might expect more than merely a good attitude from Shevchenko, who has failed dismally to integrate himself into Chelsea’s physically exacting and relentlessly driven team dynamic.

Perhaps that is no surprise, given that he was a signing virtually foisted upon Mourinho by Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner who knew him before taking over the London club.

There is also the nagging suspicion that Chelsea’s move for Shevchenko came at least two years too late. Although his goal-scoring record remained resolutely excellent in his final seasons at the San Siro, seasoned observers reported a slackening in his touch, a softening in his attitude since Milan’s Champions League triumph. Chelsea should have been alerted to this by the lack of any other European giant clamouring for his signature last year, but the club’ s hierarchy were evidently too blinded by Shevchenko’s reputation.

In the absence of any meaningful contribution from their stuttering No 7, Chelsea were grateful on Saturday for Lampard’s handy knack of producing goals at vital times. The England midfielder was only playing because Lassana Diarra, his erstwhile replacement, missed a team meeting earlier in the day — an indiscretion which is likely to seal the Frenchman’s departure from Chelsea this month, either to Marseille or Fulham — and he made Macclesfield rue his presence.

Having put his side ahead from close range in the 16th minute, Lampard snuffed out the minnows’ hope of causing a remarkable upset by re-establishing Chelsea’s lead moments after John Murphy had equalised.

The second half belonged to Chelsea and in the circumstances a depleted Macclesfield, who finished the game with nine men after running out of substitutes, deserve credit for restricting their opponents to six goals.

Wright-Phillips, John Obi Mikel and Ricardo Carvalho all added themselves to the score sheet, but Mourinho’s thoughts will be dominated by the notable name which was missing.