Sinking the Blues

Isn’t life a bitch? There you are, a charitable young Russian tycoon, trying to help impoverished footballers by spending a few billion roubles, and everything is ruined by a short-sighted referee. Perhaps we should call it the forearm of God.

Roman Abramovich has spent more than £130-million signing new stars for Chelsea — and millions more paying their extravagant wages.

But on Wednesday night, just as they had taken control, the Blues conceded a late first-half goal, which was clearly handled by Hugo Ibarra, when it hit his arm after coming off the post. Blimey, the Argentinian even apologised afterwards. Diego Maradona, eat your ailing heart out!

You see Roman, money can’t buy everything. Sure it helps. You hardly ever have to eat from MacDonald’s, you rarely clean the toilet and most days everyone smiles at you when you’ve got £43-billion to play with.

But the beautiful game is a difficult thing to control. The biggest footballing investment in the history of the game has not paid off.

Yet.

But I suspect we saw enough at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday to know that next season Chelsea will run away with the Premiership (Thierry Henry can’t produce his current sort of form indefinitely to keep Arsenal up there) and, depending on who replaces Italian boss Claudio Ranieri, they’ll be back in a Champions League semifinal too.

In one short season, the Russian owner’s millions have pushed Chelsea from edge-of-the-title race normality to the top four in Europe.

Jesper Gronkjaer and Frank Lampard, perhaps the most improved player in the Premiership this season, actually put Chelsea ahead on away goals until that shocking, ugly, off-the-wrist goal from Monaco just before half-time.

Ultimately, when Monaco produced a second goal through Real Madrid’s on-loan striker Fernando Morientes, it was a convincing win for the French club and their going-places coach Didier Deschamps.

This was the guy once famously described by the artist formerly known as Eric Cantona as ‘a water-carrier”. But the efficient, clever World Cup winner has emerged as yet another deep-thinking French manager, much like Arsène Wenger, Roger Lemerre, Philippe Troussier, Gérard Houlier and Jean Tigana.

Expect him in the Premiership soon.

Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea boss who admitted his tinkering had contributed to the 3-1 first leg defeat a fortnight before, is now definitely on his way out of the door.

Tottenham Hotspur might provide a refuge. I hope they do. Ranieri was typically forthright after the 2-2 draw which gave Monaco a 5-2 aggregate win and a ticket to the final against Porto in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on May 26.

Ranieri said: ‘We all feel exactly as you would expect but the referee didn’t see the handball so what can you do? I made mistakes in Monaco when I tried to kill the game but I am very proud of the team. The first half was an amazing game of football and we played very, very well. We put pressure on them and we knew they would be very dangerous on the break but we played it well.

‘When we conceded the goal, it changed the match. If we had gone in at half-time 2-0 up, it would have been a different game because they would have had to attack in the second half and we could have hit on the counter attack.

‘Afterwards Mr Abramovich came in the dressing room and said next time it will be better.”

Sadly it looks like Ranieri will be long gone by then, perhaps replaced by watching Porto boss Jose Mourinho, whose side swept into the final courtesy of a dour triumph over Deportivo La Coruna on Tuesday night. Mourinho was believed to be set to meet Abramovich on Thursday to discuss the possible deal.

Give me Ranieri any day. Okay, he’ll get £8-million in compensation, but the Roman sacked by Roman deserves a real crack at the ultimate prize.

There were rich images from this, the last Champions League match of any interest to the Premiership. Carlo Cudicini clutching his head in vaudeville disbelief as Swedish ref Anders Frisk ignored the handled goal. The look on Monaco goalkeeper Flavio Roma’s face as Gronkjaer’s cross-cum-shot flew in. The tears of Eidur Gudjohnsen after the whistle.

But the enduring image of this sad Chelsea exit is the visage of tinkerman Ranieri. Heart-broken, he was. In one short winter he has melded these multi-millionaires into a team of sorts. And always with the backdrop of imminent replacement by Sven Goran Eriksson or somebody similar.

Now Chelsea are an outfit capable of finishing second in the Premiership and top four in Europe. And all Abramovich needs is a rugby-style video ref as Gronkjaer said: ‘We are all frustrated because that goal was crucial. We were in control of the match and we thought that we would win it from there. This is the biggest game most of us have played in, so we are desperately disappointed.”

Ibarra said: ‘It was accidental, I didn’t realise the ball had touched my hand until I saw it on the screen.”

Hmm. An Argentinian, a hand, a vital goal. Haven’t we seen this somewhere before?