The other heavyweight clash in Manchester
It’s a summit meeting, a heavyweight collision between two forces who can be unstoppable on their day, and it’s taking place in Manchester on Saturday.
David Haye fights John Ruiz in the city’s Manchester Evening News Arena tomorrow night, roughly 10 hours after two other hugely respected sporting figures have drawn battle lines three miles away at Old Trafford. It’s Sir Alex Ferguson versus Carlo Ancelotti, round two, and this time it means so much more.
Round one went to the tough Italian, who led Chelsea to a 1-0 win over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge back in November thanks to a John Terry goal, but he’s going into the bout giving away a one-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, and, with just six games left in the season, there’s the potential to land a knockout blow on Saturday lunchtime. He knows it too.
“It will be an important game,” said the Italian, revealing his entry for the understatement of 2010.
“I think that this game won't decide the winner, but the team that wins the game will have a good chance to win the title. I am not satisfied because we are in second place in the table. We were in first place for eight months and now we are in second. We have a chance in the next game to move back into first place.”
Fighting talk then, not that Ferguson is incapable of that, but his eyes may have been taken off the prize this week by the attention surrounding Wayne Rooney’s ankle injury. Without him – and he’ll only be without him for a maximum of three weeks, despite the hype – who will he look to land the potentially decisive blows?
If Dimitar Berbatov were a boxer, he’d have no problem with the “floating like a butterfly” part, it’s just the “stinging like a bee” that would let him down.
So often so graceful to watch, he’s rarely produced against the bigger sides for United.
Admittedly he’s not often been given the chance. Rooney’s form plus Ferguson’s decision to regularly revert to a lone striker when faced with one of his more illustrious opponents means that the Bulgarian often finds himself on the sidelines. With matches against Chelsea and Bayern Munich in the coming week – both crucial to United’s trophy hopes this season – it’s time for him to show the stomach for the fight.
Terry and Alex will be much happier facing him than Rooney, and Ancelotti would be foolish if he didn’t use the England striker’s absence as a motivational tool for his side.
Didier Drogba will be the best striker on the pitch tomorrow, while Frank Lampard will be the best midfielder. On current form, Florent Malouda has a claim to be the best winger.
All the ingredients are there for Chelsea to fight a good fight, and they possess the power to win it. So long as neither side pulls their punches then it should be a real spectacle too.
Ancelotti might not think that the result will determine who’ll finish champions, but he might be thinking differently should it be Ferguson and United who have dropped to the canvas tomorrow afternoon.
Tags: