David Mellor: We would be home and dry without average Avram

David Mellor
23 Apr 2008

One millisecond can be a long time in football and that's all it took to lift Chelsea from depression at another below-par performance to the very brink of their first Champions League Final.

A wonder strike by John Arne Riise in the 94th minute, doing effortlessly what no Chelsea forward looked remotely like doing in the previous 93, has put Chelsea well on the road to Moscow.

Liverpool, after all, have not scored at Stamford Bridge on their past eight visits.

But it was a dour, stuttering affair and too many Chelsea players looked out of sorts for much triumphalism.

The defence often appeared incoherent - there were four errors in the lead-up to the Liverpool goal - and the attack fragmented, with Didier Drogba at his most irritatingly ineffectual. The only time Frank Lampard looked composed and convincing was in the post-match interview.

Napoleon's key requirement was for lucky generals and maybe Avram Grant is just that. Because here he is, a man who would not have been appointed manager by any other Premier League club, on the verge of doing what no previous Chelsea boss has done in Europe. And still, thanks to Manchester United's premenstrual tension at Blackburn last weekend, the Blues are in contention, statistically at least, for the Premier League title as well.

And all this with Chelsea playing badly. Which, so far as the League is concerned, only goes to prove that if they had been properly organised, Chelsea could have been home and dry by now. Most of those six home draws which consign them to second place would never have happened under a decent manager.

As for Grant last night, he was, as always, mediocre. His one substitution in proper time was the plain vanilla like-for-like one of Salomon Kalou for Joe Cole. What manager of reputation and experience would have taken until the 85th minute to bring on £15million striker Nicolas Anelka when Drogba was incapable of controlling the ball, let alone putting in a strike. And then he pulled off Michael Ballack, Chelsea's most creative midfielder.

Amazing, too, that the equally hapless coach, Henk ten Cate, is unable to make an effective partnership of Drogba and Anelka. And Chelsea's dead-ball play was also as amateurish as ever.

The record book will suggest last night was something of a triumph for Chelsea. The reality was very different. But Liverpool had all the luck in their two previous semi-finals, so it's only fair Chelsea should get something they didn't really deserve this time.

Let's hope United can make the Moscow police's day by proving tonight that Barcelona really are as over the hill as some observers suggest.

But the Nou Camp is a pretty intimidating place and United are more fragile under pressure than their vast army of admirers in the press box would have you believe. We'll see.