Battle at the Bridge

As Sir Alex Ferguson said after he won his first European Cup in 1999 “football bloody hell”. Even though this game didn’t end as dramatically as that night at the Nou Camp, I’m sure he would have repeated similar words after his side won at Stamford Bridge yesterday after a pulsating encounter.

The match had everything. Would Rio Ferdinand shake Ashley Cole’s hand during the pre match? (He did), controversial decisions, goals, red cards, an injured steward and a complaint by Chelsea against referee Mark Clattenberg for allegedly using "inappropriate language" towards two of their players.

Manchester United began the game four points behind Chelsea and had not registered a league victory at the Bridge since 2002.

Chelsea made two changes from the team that lost their previous match to Shaktar Donetsk, Gary Cahill replaced the suspended John Terry and Edin Hazard came in for the injured Frank Lampard.

The visitors made four alterations from the line-up that came back from 2-0 down to defeat Braga 3-2 in their last match. Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra and Antonio Valencia were restored to the starting XI in place of Alexander Buttner, Shinji Kagawa and Darren Fletcher. While two goals hero against Braga, Javier Hernandez was unfortunate to miss out as Ashley Young made his first appearance since August.

The first two minutes set the trend of how entertaining this game would be as Robin van Persie (who on his last appearance on this ground scored a hat-trick) tested Petr Cech. The away side began the game confidently and took the lead on the forth minute when a Van Persie shot cannoned back off the post onto the unlucky David Luiz.

United deserved their goal advantage and eight minutes later they were 2-0 up, this time Van Persie’s  shot found the back of the net directly after a cut back from Valencia.

Chelsea got back into the game with a Juan Mata free-kick a minute before half-time, it was the Spanish international’s seventh goal in seven games.

The last incident of a breathless first half saw Fernando Torres booked for a high challenge Jackie Chan would be proud of on Tom Cleverley.

The second half didn’t start in the same frenetic manner as the first but burst into life in the 53^rd minute when Chelsea equalised. Oscar crossed for his Brazil team-mate Ramires to score with a rear header, the Bridge was rocking and the home team had all the momentum.
That changed on the 62^nd minute when Van Persie turned Cahill and put Young through on goal. Covering defender Branislav Ivanovic clipped the winger’s heels and was given a straight red card by Clattenberg, it was the correct decision.

However six minutes later it is debateable if the right call was made by the referee as he brandished a second yellow card to Torres for diving after he was 'fouled' by Jonny Evans, Chelsea had to play the remaining 22 minutes with nine men. Roberto Di Matteo shook his head in a state of disbelief and Torres remonstrated with the forth official as a left the pitch.

During his post match interview Evans admitted he made "a bit"of contact with Torres to bring him down however Torres made more than "a bit" of an imprint of stud marks on the chest of Cleverly in the first half and was lucky to be on the pitch in the first place.

After all the effort Chelsea made to come back from 2-0 down United were bound to make the extra space count and with 15 minutes left of normal time the inevitable happened but not without the controversy that followed the pattern of the game.

Substitute Hernandez scored the winner but was clearly offside when the ball was played across the Chelsea box by Rafael. As the United players celebrated, objects were thrown onto the pitch and a steward was injured in the aftermath of the goal.

After the game a Chelsea spokesman said that the club were "investigating all the incidents around at that time".

He added: "We have lodged a complaint to the Premier League match official delegate regarding inappropriate language used by the referee towards two of our players in separate incidents in today’s game."

For this weeks league fixtures, Clattenberg has been left off the referee's list as the Professional Games Match Officals stated that he is one of the "elite referee's in world football" but "the level of scrunity (surrounding him) would detract from the match and be unfair to the clubs and supports of both sides".

United took the points here but Chelsea have the chance to get a small bit of revenge in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday in the "Battle of the Bridge" part two. If that game is as dramatic as this one it will be more frightening than most sequels on Halloween night.

Kick it Out: Is enough being done to combat racism in football?

After the previous week in football both here and abroad, I have felt the need to check and double check my calendar to make sure the year is 2012 and not 1982. It seems that racism has unfortunately been thrust into the spotlight in the past year, starting with Liverpool striker Luis Suarez being banned for eight games after being found guilty by the Football Association for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra in October last year.

In the same month in 2011, Chelsea captain John Terry was accused of using abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand which included a reference to his colour and/or race. Terry was found guilty of these charges and subsequently banned for four Premier League matches, 'disciplined' by Chelsea, stripped of his England captaincy and fined £220,000 by the FA.

Are four and eight match bans enough of a punishment to stop this happening in English football again? QPR midfielder Joey Barton (currently on-loan at Marseille) was banned for twelve league fixtures after getting sent-off against Manchester City on the last day of the 2011/12 season for violent conduct and subsequent actions after being dismissed. I am not condoning violence anywhere however should that offence carry the same punishment as a combined ban for racially abusing an opponent? After Barton was punished (dismissed as club captain and fined six weeks wages) his club banished him to France for a year but Liverpool players wore t-shirts bearing the image of Suarez in support of their player and we are still waiting to see if Chelsea will strip Terry of his captaincy.

Are clubs sending out the right messages when it comes to racist incidents involving their players?

Some black footballers have expressed their dissatisfaction at the length of bans for both Suarez and Terry along with the belief that the FA are not doing enough to combat the problems the have risen recently.

Reading striker and BBC Radio Five Live pundit Jason Roberts has refused to wear a ‘Kick It Out’ shirt before his team play Liverpool on Saturday.

Roberts explained his boycott of the shirts to BBC Sport, he said: “I won’t wear one. I find it hard to wear a t-shirt after what happened last year.”

He also believed that Terry’s ban was “a year to late” and that The FA should have given him a “longer ban” as the sanction was “nowhere near harsh enough.”

To say English football has a problem with racism would be an overstatement but football is a global game and the scenes in Serbia on Tuesday show that other countries are miles behind us when it comes to dealing with racism on and off the pitch.

Instead of celebrating qualifying for the Under-21’s Euro 2013 Tournament next year being held in Israel after a 1-0 victory, the England Under-21 team were involved with scenes more suited to WWE’s Royal Rumble.

England’s left-back Danny Rose was subjected to appalling racist abuse before, during and after the match by Serbia fans (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ15jQt4kmg).

Rose told thefa.com: “It started when we went out for the warm-up, they started the monkey chanting straight away.

“In the first half I went down to get the ball for a throw-in and the fans started again with the monkey chants, but the first half was nowhere near as bad as the second half.

“In the second half I had two stones hit me on the head when I went to get the ball for a throw-in. Every time I touched the ball there was monkey chanting again.”

The shocking behavior of the Serbia fans was bad enough but for their coach Aleksandar Jankovic to say “both sides” were to blame for the ugly scenes and the Serbia captain Slobodan Medojevic to be oblivious to any racial chanting is beyond alarming.

The FA and Prime Minister David Cameron demanded UEFA hand out “tough sanctions” to the Serbia fans if found guilty of racist chanting.

However let’s not hold our breath on those sanctions being tougher than the £16,000 the Serbian Football Federation was fined in 2007 after their fans racially abused then Manchester City defender Nedum Onouha at the Under-21 European Championship in Holland.

This is the same UEFA that recently fined S.S. Lazio just £32,000 for their fans racially abusing Tottenham Hotspurs players in a Europa League match earlier this season.

UEFA would rather fine Denmark’s Nicklas Bendtner £80,000 for revealing underpants carrying an unauthorised sponsor’s logo during the summer’s European Championship. Just that example alone shows how seriously one of the games administrative bodies takes racism.

How can we forget the comments from FIFA president Sepp Blatter who claimed racism could be solved with a simple “handshake” at the end of a match?

With comments like that and the pathetic fines handed out you cannot blame players and fans alike who feel disillusioned with the way racism is being handled.

The day after the Serbia against England Under-21 match, Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand wrote on Twitter: “The only way to start stopping racism + violence in stadiums is BIG bans... fines means nothing.”

It’s hard to disagree with the former England captain opinion and with the FA funded and supported 'Kick It Out' awareness week beginning yesterday it could be more important than ever for the FA, FIFA and UEFA to do more to kick racism out of football forever.