Anxious Listeners in Manchester : Episode Sixteen

So the question was always going to be, how will they react. Either way, we seem unlikely to be the story, it's going to be entirely about Chelsea, which must be all to the good.

Not especially concerned, until the television decides to go on the blink about an hour before kick-off. It's clearly the NTL feed, or the Virgin feed as it has now become. The programmes via the roof-top aerial seems fine, so the set itself must be fine.

I call the Virgin call-centre. Their menu has an irritatingly perky female voice; their customer service centre a male voice, which I assume to be on the sub-continent. We try the usual tricks like switching things on and off and unplugging various devices and plugging them back in. I try and explain the problem. It occurs to me that there must be an entire generation that does not understand the concept of "vertical hold"- and its absence - a perennial fault of televisions in my childhood. It is quite hard to explain what's happening without this bit of available vocabulary.

Eventually, we lose the entire Virgin picture, which at least has the advantage of now being extremely simple to describe. By then we have established that it is affecting all their channels, although some worse than others, so it must be the set-top box. I dread the fact that this is one of their old analogue boxes and will probably be beyond repair or replacement (they were unable to replace even the remote a couple of years back). OK, that will pre-empt the decision to go digital, which I would probably have made in the next few weeks anyway, but that in itself is bound to lead to delays, waits for engineers and the usual trappings of any change in service (including an increase in the price). In the meantime, an engineer can come out on Wednesday. Seems pointless to do anything other than agree.

In the more pressing meantime, we need to get to the nearest pub; as it's a standard Sky game, this can be interpreted quite literally for once.

It's somewhere we don't really go that often. The beer is tolerable, rather than good, but as good as the place where we usually go for Setanta games, anyway, although that says virtually nothing. But it isn't a CAMRA branch meeting after all (and frankly they have been known to meet in some of the most bizarre pubs , in the cause of evangelism).

I read bits of the piece in The Observer about how J Terry was the one who pushed Mourinho over the edge. It is strange how Terry seems to have come to believe a lot of the stuff about him being an "icon". This rumour about him demanding a clause in his contract that will always make him their best-paid player was perhaps the start (although I suppose it is only a way of putting some form of inflation-proofing - or Ballack proofing - into a long-term contract, it does have that aura of crazed arrogance - if they sign Kaka or Ronaldinho, for example, does Terry really think he should be in that same bracket? I'm not even sure he should be in the England team).

Useless grainy slow motion montage of Mourinho clips. There is obviously an entire group of television workers who make a living out of putting these things together, for a purpose which is entirely beyond me, other than to use up time which regulation says cannot be used for advertising. It is presumably a cheaper method of programming than many others, although surely not cheaper than talking heads talking bollocks.

As the game is about to start, baskets of "roast" potatoes and chicken are put out on the tables. This is a most civilised version of an old tradition, which harks back to those distant days of the last century when you were only allowed a couple of hours in the pub from 12 to 2, in between church and Sunday dinner. Although it seems like ancient history, it can't really be that long ago, when the only way we could watch the Sunday afternoon game in the pub was via a lock-in. Certainly, less than fifteen years ago.

Saha is on the bench and Tevez starts alongside Rooney is the only notable team news, although it's reassuring that John O'Shea is back on the bench, in case we need an emergency striker.

Chelsea are playing all three of their holding midfielders - Makalele, Mikel Obi and Essien - and Shevchenko on his own up front between Joe Cole and Malouda. The three who might be most upset by Mourinho's departure (Lampard, Drogba and Carvalho) are injured, of course. Grant's fellow Israeli, Ben Haim, replaces Alex. If this is Abramovich's team, the cavalier instinct is not notable. Wright-Phillips, for instance, one of their better players this season, is on the bench.

Early on, Rooney cuts inside Ben Haim on the edge of the box and curls a shot on goal which Petr Cech just finger-tipped wide at full-stretch.

Cech is probably the only player I envy Chelsea. Essien and Mikel we would have had, of course, and would have saved us the need to buy Hargreaves, but they chose the money, or their agents' did. (I don't think either of them are Mourinho men; more like Kenyon men). But I don't think I'd have anyone else from the Chelsea team.

For the first half-hour it's a relatively even game. We probably have the slight edge, whilst Chelsea look half dangerous on the break, only never seem to get their options or final ball right. I am reassured to see that Shevchenko doesn't look like suddenly finding his old form, which I had half worried about. His pace has gone, and without that half-yard the space to apply the ability to control and shoot seems to have gone as well,

We are denied a penalty when Joe Cole slides in on Evra and brings him down, before getting a faint touch on the ball, probably with his knee. That touch may give Mr Dean enough "doubt". Giggs wasted a decent chance (and was to waste another better one in the second half, after a fine ball from Carrick) - perhaps he will never reach 100 league goals and will be forever stranded on 98. I wonder if he regrets the Faustian pact he made with the devil after his first season, when he gave up the ability to score regularly so that he could acquire the ability to tackle.

On the half-hour, Mikel clatters Paddy. It's a poor tackle, but I didn't think there was anything malicious in it. However, Mike Dean is reaching for his back pocket. As a referee, he is fairly trigger-happy with red cards and gestures that he thinks Mikel went in two footed. You can see, from the replay, how Dean might have seen it that way, and Mikel certainly went studs first on to Paddy's metatarsal region, but he didn't go over the ball and the second foot didn't seem to catch him at all.

I think that with ten men and our limited ability to break down the massed defence this season, we are edging ever closer to the 0-0.

Although there are words for the next to last and for the one before the next to last, I don't know a word for the one after the last. The postultimate, I suppose. Anyway, in the last minute, we attacked and got a corner. I am not entirely sure where this concept has come from, but referees these days are clearly reluctant to blow the whistle for the end of a playing period when the ball is either out of play or in either attacking third. It is a very modern idea and can be irritating when referees seem to wait for, for example, a goal kick to be taken, so that they blow whilst the ball is in mid-air over the half-way line.

Anyway, Mike Dean allows time for the corner to be taken on the right. Usually, once the corner is cleared away, he might blow, but Wes Brown comes onto the clearance and heads it straight back wide to Giggs, who's moving out after taking the corner. Giggs turns back along the by-line and puts in a wickedly spinning cross to the near post with the outside of his foot. Cech comes to clear it out by the post and Tevez dives across in front of his hands and deflects it into the net. A great time to score, the postultimate minute.

The second half was largely anti-climactic. I worried that United might have their eye on some record of successive 1-0 victories. Although Chelsea were creating nothing - I don't think EVDS had to touch the ball in anger all game - at 1-0 there is always the fear of a wonder strike, a ghastly deflection or a moment of refereeing madness.

Shevchenko was substituted around the hour mark. Shots of Abramovich (and acolytes) applauding ostentatiously. Perhaps he always applauds when players go off, but the producer doesn't usually bother showing it.

There was one moment when Joe Cole cracked Ronnie from behind that was more deserving of a red card than Mikel's challenge, but gradually things ticked down. Cole was taken off fairly quickly, in case the referee had his eye on him.

Saha came on rather later than usual, as much to let Tevez leave the field to applause as to exploit any gaps. Still he made a run or two and the result was sealed when Ben Haim left a leg hanging for Saha to go over. Quite deliberate, I would imagine, on Louis's part, although he didn't exactly have to swerve into him.

I thought it was a clear penalty, although Louis didn't help by a piece of over-acting. The sort of thing that often puts a referee off. Perhaps this one was subconsciously remembering the one he didn't give earlier, and thought it late enough not to affect the game.

This not being Arsenal, Saha then got straight up to take the penalty. Ronnie looked fairly put out. Giggs had stopped him taking a free-kick earlier in the game and given it to Tevez to blaze over the bar. Although Ronnie had since had the chance to take a free-kick himself (it would have gone into the wall as usual but the wall obligingly let it through for Cech to scoop up with little concern), he may have seen some sort of conspiracy in demoting him for penalties as well. Louis put it hard enough down the centre of the goal, fortunately missing Cech's feet on the way.
Manchester United 2 Chelsea 0

Manchester Utd: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Giggs, Tevez (Saha 79), Rooney.

Subs Not Used: Kuszczak, Nani, Pique, O'Shea.

Booked: Rooney (61 : dissent), Brown (80 : foul).

Goals: Tevez 45, Saha 90 pen.

Strip : Red shirts, white shorts, black stockings.

Chelsea: Cech, Ferreira, Ben-Haim, Terry, Ashley Cole, Makelele, Essien, Obi, Joe Cole (Pizarro 76), Shevchenko (Kalou 59), Malouda (Wright-Phillips 69).

Subs Not Used: Cudicini, Alex.

Sent Off: Obi (32).

Booked: Joe Cole (73), Terry (83).

Attendance : 75,663 Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral).

This is when you really miss Mourinho, of course : a harsh sending off, a goal after time, a soft penalty. How much he would have made of all that. Avram Grant sounded like a low-level trade union official remembering a list of grievances. There was no panache, no histrionics; not even the achieved pout of Benitez.

No longer will we be able to see the man whose entire career was founded on a dodgy linesman's decision ranting on about officials and injustice. In truth, it takes away some of the savour of victory. Some of the savour, of course, but not a lot.