Blues need to focus on performance ahead of revenge

There has been a lot of talk of revenge in the context of tonight’s all-English Champions League tie between Chelsea and Manchester United, as both sides arguably have a score to settle with each other.

The last time the two sides met in the competition was during the 2008 final, which was a tale of two halves, an eventful extra time period which saw Didier Drogba see red and Chelsea were narrowly defeated in an agonizing penalty shootout.

Many argue that we perhaps deserved to win that game after getting ourselves back into the tie after an awful start and coming within inches of winning our first Champions League trophy.

This is a competition that the Blues have suffered some bad luck in, including ‘ghost goals’, a slippery penalty area and the infamous refereeing of Tom Henning Ovrebo. But Chelsea cannot let themselves get weighted down by the aforementioned events and concentrate on letting their football do the talking during the quarter-final fixtures against the Red Devils.

A lot of United’s fans and even their manager Sir Alex Ferguson have been harping on recently about how ‘lucky’ Chelsea have been to win the last three league encounters against Carlo Ancelotti’s side, but none of this matters tonight and I’d like to think we wouldn’t fall for the mind games of the Scot and become victim to his jibes.

In the interest of fairness, I would admit that we did have the rub of the green during the last game when David Luiz really ought to have been sent off for a couple of dodgy challenges and the penalty decision was a bit soft.

But their excuses in the two league clashes last season wear a little thin, with the first being the award of the ‘dubious’ free-kick that assisted John Terry for the winner, it was hardly an outrageous decision compared to letting Jonny Evans get away with an assault on Drogba.

The Ivorian had the last laugh when he scored from an offside position at Old Trafford during the next Premier League meeting between the two sides, which nobody denies was unfair but they are quick to forget their goal went in via the hand of Federico Macheda. Just goes to show how easy you can use the so-called facts to suit your own agenda.

We have had our problems this season and are effectively out of the title race, but there is enough cause for optimism going into tonight’s game.

I think that Patrice Evra could be the man to get at this evening as he looked very shaky when put onto the back foot against West Ham at the weekend and I can’t see Luis Nani helping him out much defensively down their left flank. The Portuguese winger is just one of United’s danger men alongside Antonio Valencia and Wayne Rooney, so the likes of Ramires and Florent Malouda (or whoever starts on the left) will have to help nullify the wide threat whilst Rooney occupies Terry.

A lot is being made of the Fernando Torres v Nemanja Vidic battle, which some say is mostly hyperbole, but despite being one of the best defenders in Europe the Serb can get nervy around the Spaniard and has had the tendency to get himself off when coming up against him, so it’s worth getting Torres to take him on at every opportunity and try to exploit any seed of doubt that may be in Vidic’s mind.

Chelsea face a fantastic opportunity if they can successfully negotiate this tie as it looks as though Schalke would be the team to await us in the semi-final, and despite the fact they’re a decent side, we would undoubtedly be favourites to progress.

What are your predictions for tonight’s game?

KTBFFH!

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