JOSE MOURINHO walks into a press conference as John Wayne once ambled into a saloon. Within seconds, something happens. All it took yesterday was a straightforward question about Frank Lampard and his value to the Premiership leaders. It was an opportunity for the Chelsea gunslinger to lay down the law: “The player,” he said of Lampard, “is the best player in the world.”
Forget Ronaldinho, Robinho, Ronaldo, Shevchenko, Zidane and all the others. Mourinho knows better. Being Jose, he couldn’t offer the opinion without a touch of insolence. “You have to ask these top people of world football,” he said of those who dish out prestigious awards to the game’s finest, “what they’re doing on weekends?” Mourinho made sense. He wasn’t saying Lampard was more skilful than Ronaldinho or more powerful than Ronaldo but that he did more for Chelsea than the annual winners of world awards do for their clubs. Who can argue? Think of an afternoon, September 16, 2001 at White Hart Lane and the occasion of Lampard’s fourth game in Chelsea’s blue.
He went down in the penalty box, appeals for a penalty were turned down and after getting up, he accidentally collided with Spurs goalkeeper Neil Sullivan. Wrongly, he was given a yellow card, his second, and the dismissal brought the one-match ban that caused him to miss a game away to Fulham two weeks later. Now in his fifth season at Chelsea, that was the only Premiership game he didn’t start in almost four-and-a-half seasons with the Stamford Bridge club.
Yesterday was Lampard’s 157th consecutive game for the Blues. “There are some great players in the world,” added Mourinho, “no doubt about it, but they play one game every month or one day they are man of the match, the next day they don’t get a touch. This player is top in every game.”
If Lampard was a horse he would be sent to stud and made to reproduce but, for Mourinho, the Chelsea midfielder reproduces every week. Yesterday’s performance was typical; he provided the cross for the first and scored the second and third, and from midfield, he is the Premiership’s leading scorer.
Somebody asked Mourinho afterwards if he agreed this victory put Chelsea back on track. Nobody exaggerates the sense of being insulted better than “The Special One”. He shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows and the body language screamed indignation. “Back on track? Back on track? Mama mia! Back on track. This was game No 40 without a defeat. This season, 10 wins and a draw: what do you say to Arsène Wenger after his team draws 1-1 with Tottenham? Back on track. Mama mia.”
Yet this was an important victory and when Joe Cole’s shot took a vicious deflection off Zurab Khizanishvili to wrong-foot Brad Friedel and put Chelsea 4-2 in front, Mourinho’s vibrant acclamation told us how the manager actually felt. Blackburn offered serious and organised opposition. On another day they might have got something but Chelsea were too good.
The leaders’ cause was helped by the dismissal from the dugout of Mark Hughes. Nine minutes into the second half, the Blackburn manager’s irritation with a few decisions by referee Mike Riley reached boiling point. After Tugay was harshly penalised for a foul on Michael Essien, Hughes tried but failed to get Riley’s attention.
Irritation turning to downright anger, he belted a kitbag with his right foot. It was not a day to reach boiling point because the fourth official was called Kettle, Steve Kettle, and he reported Hughes.
“I am a little bit confused why he sent me to the stands,” Hughes said. “I shouted three times to get the referee’s attention, couldn’t do it and then kicked the bag.”
So Hughes went backstage as Chelsea moved centre stage but it was his team’s refusal to lie down that gave us such a good match. Chelsea, too, produced a fine performance, epitomised by their fiercely positive start. The first goal came on 10 minutes. John Terry surged to reach Lampard’s corner and when the ball was cleared back to the England midfielder Blackburn’s defence was at sixes and sevens.
So much so that they left Didier Drogba alone in the six yards from goal and he comfortably scored with his head. The advantage was doubled four minutes later and, again, the goal was created from a corner. Terry again caused panic by going for the ball with such conviction that Andy Todd wrestled him illegally. Lampard belted the penalty into the corner of the net.
That kind of start would have killed off most teams at Stamford Bridge, not Blackburn. They inched their way back into the game and when Petr Cech failed to properly clear Morten Pedersen’s corner, Ricardo Carvalho was judged to have fouled Khizanishvili. Craig Bellamy scored easily from the spot.
Blackburn continued to improve and two minutes before the break, they equalised. An innocuous cross came Asier Del Horno’s way but instead of clearing, the Spaniard lazily turned a ball back to his goalkeeper.
Cech screwed his clearance five yards forward and into the air. Blackburn’s Shefki Kuqi then showed commendable composure in rising above Terry and intelligently directing his header to Bellamy, who stooped and scored decisively. Two-two and Chelsea were rattled.
They recovered, though. Lampard put his team back in front with an outstanding free kick. The ball swung dramatically from right to left, missed Terry’s head by inches and still flew into the corner of the net. Cole’s late goal gave Chelsea a margin of victory that might have been marginally flattering.
STAR MAN: Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Player ratings: Chelsea: Cech 5, Gallas 6, Carvalho 6, Terry 7, Del Horno 5, Makelele 6, Wright-Phillips 5 (Robben 68min, 6), Lampard 8, Essien 7, Cole 7 (Gudjohnsen 78min, 6), Drogba 7 (Crespo 80min, 6)
Blackburn Rovers: Friedel 6, Neill 6, Khizanishvili 6, Todd 6, Gray 6, Emerton 5, Savage 6 (Mokoena 77min, 6), Tugay 7 (Reid 72min, 6), Pedersen 5, Bellamy 6, Kuqi 6 (Dickov 75min, 5)
Scorers: Chelsea: Drogba 10, Lampard 14 pen, 62, Cole 74
Blackburn Rovers: Bellamy 18 pen, 44
Referee: M Riley
Attendance: 41,553
