Grant banking on English tradition

"Sometimes I know I'm too positive," mused Grant, after Chelsea's efficient dismissal of Newcastle at St James Park set up the closest finale to a top-flight season in England for 40 years with Manchester United leading their London pursuers on mere goal difference.

No, he didn't believe in a 19-0 win against Bolton on Sunday, he smiled. "But I do believe in the tradition of English football."

It's the tradition which, when he was a wide-eyed young visitor from Israel studying the sound and fury of the old first division, made him say to himself: "This is a footballing country like no other. You never know until the end here . . ."

It's the tradition of fair play which 30 years on from his first trip to England, still convinces him that the Wigan team which Steve Bruce, a Manchester United hero and close friend of Sir Alex Ferguson, puts out at the JJB on Sunday will do its damnedest to rob United of a 10th title.

Yet minutes only later, probably the most famously optimistic of the game's dwindling band of incurable romantics was offering Grant a stark reality check.

The great tradition of English football? Kevin Keegan made it sound as if it was as dead as the dodo. What we had now, reckoned the Newcastle boss in a magnificent rant, was a four-team oligopoly in which United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool inhabited a world a "million miles" from everyone else.

A world, he mused, where the big four only ever got beaten by each other. In his seventies' Liverpool pomp, he remembered how they might lose eight a season; now United and Chelsea were losing only eight between them. Wigan to halt United? Forget it.

The afternoon's fare seemed to reinforce his laments. With a rejuvenated team, the St James' Toon Army in 50,000-strong full cry and Chelsea needing to win or bust, Newcastle had everything going for them. Instead, it turned into a walk in the Park for the visitors.

Chelsea looked as if they were dozing in a Bank Holiday motorway queue until half-time, needing a John Terry goalline clearance to rouse them from their somnolence. Yet with a tactical readjustment and the injection of a little urgency, two second-half goals from Michael Ballack and Florent Malouda saw them simply purr past Newcastle like a Jag cutting up a jalopy.

"I don't see what we can do about it. If you know, tell me!" sighed Keegan, bemoaning the gulf which makes him believe Newcastle will never reach the Champions League while he's at the club.

Yet Chelsea weren't listening to King Kev's 'To Have and Have Not' laments. Why should they when they still remember how only three weeks ago Wigan came to the Bridge, threw men forward like it was going out of fashion and nicked an injury-time draw through Emile Heskey? Yes, those miracles can happen.

That knowledge in itself may carry its own psychological baggage for a United team who've had to shoulder the favourite's weight for so long this term.

There's no escaping the dynamic; Chelsea come over as the hunters, the team with nothing to lose and United as the ones with everything to chuck away.

Ultimately, Grant pondered aloud for the umpteenth time this past month, the difference between Chelsea winning and losing the title might turn out to be the shocker which referee Mike Dean had at Old Trafford on the day he launched his Blues' managerial reign in September.

"But we need to wait and see because anything is possible. Especially in English football," he said.

"We played today against a manager, Kevin Keegan, who represents the beauty of English football in that he always tries to give his best - and I believe it will be the same at Wigan."

Only, Keegan could have told him the also-rans' best is just not good enough any more. United may have to choke like 11 Augusta-fearing Greg Normans if they're to blow this one.