Penalty ignites Benitez feud with Mourinho
By Tim Rich
Sport.Telegraph, 20th August 2007
The voice of Anfield's Tannoy announcer was almost choked with glee. "I just
want to point out that this is Manchester United's worst start to the season
in 15 years," he shouted. They talk a lot about history at Liverpool but,
had they checked, they would have discovered that the 1992-93 season finished
with Sir Alex Ferguson winning his first Premier League title.
You can tell little by beginnings, but this was a match that showed the balance
of power in the Premier League is very slowly shifting under the patent leather
shoes of the big clubs. On Chelsea's last two visits to Anfield, they had seen
their hopes of a third Premier League and a first European Cup final drain away,
and now they limped home to London grateful for a point.
Having turned down a firm commitment to come to Merseyside, citing the Ashley
Cole argument that a few thousand extra a week would make a significant
difference to a millionaire lifestyle, Rafael Benitez had little love for
Florent Malouda.
The Liverpool manager would have even less desire to resume his summer
conversations with the French winger as he attempted to dummy Shaun
Wright-Phillips' cross and collided with Steve Finnan. The ball rolled
out to an unmarked Didier Drogba, no Chelsea player appealed, Rob Styles,
standing a few yards away, indicated a penalty. It was a dreadful decision,
although not quite as ridiculous as one the referee was to make later in
the game when he did not send off Michael Essien despite showing him a
second yellow card.
Significantly, Mourinho did not attempt to defend the penalty, except to
argue that Chelsea had suffered so many setbacks at Anfield, including Luis
Garcia's "ghost goal" in the 2005 European Cup semi-final, that they deserved
some fortune.
It was a curiously similar penalty to the one Malouda had won in the World
Cup final, the one Zinedine Zidane had clipped home via an Italian crossbar.
Frank Lampard converted, but, thereafter, a point appeared to be the limit
of Chelsea's ambitions on a ground where they had won 4-1 in October 2005.
When Benitez threw on Peter Crouch, Mourinho responded with a defender,
Alex. "When I saw their giant come off the bench I thought it was time to
bring my giant on," he said. "But we tried to win for 85 minutes. We never
play here with our ideal team; last year I had to use Michael Essien as a
centre half."
Then, Essien had been all but humiliated. This time by pressing him into
service as a right back Mourinho deprived himself of his likeliest candidate
to win him the midfield. He was also extremely fortunate to finish the game.
Essien had already been booked when, not for the first time, Tal Ben-Haim
proved unable to cope with the pace of Fernando Torres. John Terry was booked
for protesting and so, too, was Essien for a second time.
Significantly, Chelsea were stretched almost to breaking point by two men who
had rejected their money, Torres and Steven Gerrard. Benitez's policy of
risking the broken toe his captain sustained in Toulouse and pulling him out
of England's friendly with Germany was absolutely vindicated in one sumptuous
pass that released all of Torres' pace and skill.
It may be time to end the speculation that had Mourinho signed Ben Haim
from Bolton in January he might have salvaged Chelsea's title. The Israeli
blundered in, was wrong-footed and looked up to see Torres slide his shot
past Petr Cech.
The equaliser, however, would have done nothing to ease the dislike Benitez
feels for Mourinho. When reminded of the Chelsea manager's observation that
his were a "pure, naive team", Benitez quipped that if that were true, he
was Little Red Riding Hood. There is no doubt whom he sees as the Big Bad
Wolf.
When congratulating Chelsea for breaking Liverpool's record of 63 unbeaten
home matches set in the days of Bob Paisley, he talked of Claudio Ranieri,
under whom the run began, and Roman Abramovitch, who had paid for it.
Mourinho, who had supervised most of Stamford Bridge's triumphs, was
mentioned not at all.
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