Good riddance to Drogba, his antics won't be missed

David Mellor
22 May 2008

Chelsea's night of disappointment and a host of might-have-beens should not obscure a first-class performance by the team, who mainly did us proud. They contributed mightily to what was, against all the odds, a fine advertisement for the Premier League, which finally came of age.

Until extra-time, the match was pulsating and utterly absorbing and, but for the woodwork, after a thrilling second-half performance Chelsea would have lifted the trophy in normal time.

As it was, fate reserved its cruellest cut to penalties when, of all people, John Terry slipped and missed the crucial one.

But no one should blame him for that. Throughout the season, despite injuries that would have laid low a lesser man, he was immense. But for him Chelsea would have been nowhere near Moscow.

Terry's stumble was the second time the awful Luzhniki Stadium pitch intervened; the first being Edwin van der Sar's slip that let Lampard in for Chelsea's equaliser.

No amount of praise for the heroics of both teams should obscure the fact this game should never have been staged in Moscow, an inadequate and entirely inappropriate venue for a match that was always going to feature Western European not Eastern European teams.

If John Terry can be excused his pitch-induced error, a different verdict has been delivered on Didier Drogba. He was at his play-acting, largely ineffectual worst, culminating in a wholly unnecessary sending off.

Had he stayed on the pitch, he not Terry would surely have taken the fateful spot-kick, and it should be a source of shame to him forever that he wasn't. But I bet it will be water off a duck's back.

Drogba has scored some great goals for Chelsea but there have been plenty of other games, especially this season, he has floated through on a sea of ego-driven petulance - and this was one of them. Has he played his last game for Chelsea? I for one hope so.

Another who cannot be praised for his night's work is Nicolas Anelka. He missed his penalty, in typical insouciant style, and didn't seem overly bothered about it. That's what you get for £120,000 a week.

Having said that, it is an indictment of Avram Grant and his coaches that they have only used this £15million striker as a supernumerary winger and never made any serious effort to turn him and Drogba into an effective strike partnership. They got their just desserts for that last night.

Which brings me, of course, to Grant himself. He did nothing wrong last night, except perhaps to field the moody Malouda. But you've only got to look at him alongside Alex Ferguson to know he isn't the business.

Chelsea need a manager the players can respect and of whom the fans can be proud. No doubt another fancy-dan foreigner is already being lined up but for me a guy in the ITV studio last night is the man. Why look further than Mark Hughes, who has technical nouse and fighting spirit aplenty.

Having come so near, and yet so far, from a triumph in his native Moscow, Roman Abramovich has some serious thinking to do. You can buy a team but you can't buy class, and it was class off the pitch that Chelsea so obviously lacked.

It wasn't just Grant compared to Ferguson, but the dismal spectacle of that mercenary Manc, Peter Kenyon, leading the team up to get their gongs.

We had Kenyon, Manchester United had Sir Bobby Charlton. It spoke volumes, didn't it?