Chelsea pensioners given runaround
It took just 36 seconds to underline that fact against Chelsea, and now Alex Ferguson is just an ‘Ole’ away from celebrating his 12th title.
A point from either of their last two games, away at Blackburn and at home to Blackpool, and the trophy will be nestling back in familiar surroundings.
Old Trafford did not need to be convinced — acclaiming the team as champions already.
Arsenal, whose comfortable victory over a jaded United last week had revived the prospect of the race going all the way to the last day of the season, had bowed out just before kick off with a predictable defeat at Stoke and Chelsea’s hopes went the same way as they were easily outplayed at Old Trafford, the 2-1 scoreline flattering them.
Ferguson’s only possible gripe will be that United failed to finish off the Blues, with Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez both unusually wasteful.
Chelsea were never in it though — Carlo Ancelotti must have taken Alan Hansen’s infamous ‘you never win anything with kids’ words to heart as his starting line-up harked back to a previous era.
Of the XI, nine had been players in the days of Jose Mourinho, coming up to four years ago, and one of the other two, David Luiz, only made it to half time before he was replaced after being given the runaround by Hernandez.
As for Fernando Torres, brought on to try and effect a rescue act for the remaining half-hour, this will have done little to lift his personal gloom.
Meanwhile, Ferguson’s decision to play a virtual second-string against Schalke paid off as United emerged from the tunnel looking as if they had spent the week being pampered on a spa break.
In the opening seconds the evergreen Ryan Giggs, playing in central midfield, sent Ji-Sung Park sprinting up the pitch and when Luiz — the bane of United at Stamford Bridge — missed his through-ball Hernandez showed his by-now customary coolness to slot past Petr Cech.
It was a snapshot of how United won their individual battles and collectively mastered Chelsea.
Giggs was also heavily involved in United’s second. The Welshman played a short corner and then re-took possession, nipped neatly past Salomon Kalou and provided the perfect cross for Nemanja Vidic to direct a downward header past Cech.
Who was marking Vidic? Who indeed, and his fellow Serbian Branislav Ivanovic looked the guilty party.
“Are you watching Merseyside?” chanted the Old Trafford crowd; probably not —for anyone hoping for a United defeat the writing was on the wall.
“Incessant tribalism” is how Ferguson referred to the Premier League last week, and if that is what drives his players on, he must try to harness that competitive edge for the Champions League final against Barcelona to clinch a near-perfect season.
United can certainly not afford to be so wasteful — both Wayne Rooney and Hernandez somehow failed to bury three good chances each, many of them created by Antonio Valencia, who gave Ashley Cole one of the most uncomfortable afternoons of his career.
There may also be more bad news for Rooney, who looked to have flicked a V-sign in response to insults from the visiting Chelsea fans as he left the pitch at half time.
The England striker’s antics in trying to secure a red card for Ivanovic by some cold-blooded writhing on the ground also looked behaviour more suited to El Clasico than the Theatre of Dreams.
Ancelotti, a pragmatist if nothing else, will know Roman Abramovich may decide second place is nowhere and the Italian also has the knowledge both his January signings again failed to deliver.
After Frank Lampard had kept the game alive by steering in Ivanovic’s header, Torres did have one clear chance but he pulled it wide and the title race was as good as over.
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