Brave calls bring deliverance for Resurrection Man Grant
Well, he didn’t get that, but he got the next best thing as Arsenal, on course for victory, surrendered both their lead in the game and in the table over Chelsea. But if Manchester United were the clear winners on Grand Slam Sunday, Avram Grant wasn’t far behind. On Easter Sunday, we might even call him the Resurrection Man.
Roundly abused for bringing off Ballack and Makelele when his side were one down, the Chelsea manager’s bold decision was promptly vindicated when Didier Drogba, a problem for Arsenal’s wobbly defence all afternoon, struck on the double. The result was probably a fatal blow to the Gunners’ title ambitions, since they had already put themselves in a position of playing catch-up after four draws on the spin.
As for Chelsea, they showed they can be just as resilient under Grant as they used to be under Jose Mourinho, though it’s still a moot point whether they have enough in their armoury to blow United’s title chase out of the water at this late stage.
Still, they’ve given themselves a fighting chance. With United now five clear, some people might think it’s all over.
But with seven games to play it clearly isn’t, and after all the hype surrounding yesterday’s top four battles, attention will now focus, in particular, on United’s home game against Arsenal on April 13 and their visit to Stamford Bridge on the 26th.
The first bout in the Grand Slam turned on a self-inflicted blow, as Javier Mascherano stretched the limited patience of referee Steve Bennett to breaking point.
Bennett may be fussily officious but Mascherano should never have given him the opportunity to indulge the official’s natural tendency, especially after Ashley Cole had just spilled that particular can of worms all over the back pages.
The pity of it all was that the sending off meant we’ll never know if Liverpool might have been able to put it up to their arch-rivals, although the signs were never hugely encouraging. Already one to the good and the more threatening side even when it was 11 against 11, Mascherano’s departure effectively made it a stroll in the park for United. And those three goals could prove invaluable if the title comes down to goal difference.
Despite keeping the final score down with a couple of terrific stops, Pepe Reina was the other villain of the piece for Liverpool as he twice came without the necessary conviction in a doomed attempt to claim fairly routine crosses.
The result? One goal from a wholly unexpected source, Wes Brown, and another from an entirely predictable one, even if it was one of the few eye-catching things Ronaldo did on a day when the reality of his performance scarcely matched his reputation. Still, his 34th goal of the season only served to confirm that even when the golden boy isn’t doing much right, he apparently can still do nothing wrong.
United’s third, a cracking finish to a fine move, was just the icing on the cake; by then Liverpool were a well beaten team, whose complaints about the early sending off should not be allowed to deflect from the fact that, even with a full complement on the pitch, they hardly ever looked like posing serious problems for Edwin van Der Sar.
At the back for United, Vidic and Ferdinand kept the threat of Fernando Torres under wraps but Liverpool’s central defence were much less comfortable in the face of Wayne Rooney who proved, yet again, that he doesn’t need to get on the scoresheet in order to exert a big influence on a big game.
But the best player on the pitch was Paul Scholes. Where Steven Gerrard only showed his quality in patches, the veteran United man was at it all match long, his passing, by turns simple and penetrating, adding up to a textbook demonstration of the midfielder’s art.
If United do go on to win the title, Ronaldo may hog the headlines but Scholes’ contribution should not be overlooked.
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