Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United - Football beats dirty tactics as Chelsea now head to Wembley.

It turns out Mourinho lied about the extent of his injury crisis. What a surprise. At least Rojo started, which meant that we had the tingly, warm and fuzzy possibility that some of our players had watched Chopper's bit on the cup coverage yesterday and fancied trying out of a few horrific tackles and possibly decapitating the vicious, filthy little turd at some point tonight, 1970s style. I find irony in being called a rent-boy by United fans when he looks like he could be earning a living dancing in a cage wearing nothing but a pair of spandex hot pants and a unicorn horn. I have gay friends that would place this in the category of awesome.

For his part, Conte opted to put Matic back in the starting lineup over Fabregas. Pedro dropped down to the bench in favour of Willan minus his afro, which just doesn't look right. (Not to mention he is going to get asked for ID everywhere he goes) One game away from Wembley there was no room for any of the squad players, it was a full strength side. (Insert generic whine from Jose about how we can do this because we have had so few fixtures this season when he is largely the reason for this)

A lot of the early play was with United, and the first shot of the game was an off target one from Mkhitaryan (whose name I have cut and pasted from Wikipedia) after eleven minutes. After this, we started to play our way into the game, but unsurprisingly, it wasn’t easy to get going in the face of such a cynical setup from our ex-manager.

There was a flurry of chances after a quarter of an hour, one of which required a good save from De Gea, but it was frustrating. Hazard looked up for this, and it felt like he might have one of those days when he winds the length of the pitch and does something amazing. If only Plan A for the opposition wasn’t to take it in turns to foul him. Let’s just get Refwatch over with. Michael Oliver bottled it tonight. Here is what should have happened: He should have cracked down on this cynical b*ll*cks straight away and by half time United probably would have had at least four players on a yellow as a result of persistently hacking him down; namely Herrera, Pogba, Jones and someone else whose name escapes me because I’m trying to stop a kitten from ripping open a rubbish bag.

What actually happened, though, was that Oliver only booked one, Herrera. Then he let an embarrassing amount of incidents go, culminating in not booking Jones (I think) after what was clearly a yellow card offence. With the next ball, Herrera acts like a bellend and brings down Eden, again. He has to be booked, because it was the equivalent of listening to the ref’s warning and then pulling your pants down and mooning him. So instead of keeping control of the game and being consistent, Oliver has ended up sending someone off who probably wouldn’t have gone if the referee had have done his job properly up to that point and was in a position to use his discretion.

He could actually just change his job title to “Pogba’s Bitch,” because how he had the audacity NOT to book him tonight for any of his dirty tackles defies belief. Still, sh*t happens and United were down to ten and ultimately they had nobody to blame but themselves for going down this yobbish route in the first place. It all kicked off and Conte gave as good as he got. I was willing Jose to get sent to the stands at the Bridge. But let me get one thing straight. Laughing at his misfortune, his antics and his general misery gives me no end of entertainment. Some of this things he says want me to go for him like a rabid gerbil. But the man took us to our first title in half a century. He gave us two more. He deserved better than some of the stuff that was sung at him tonight. Especially when you consider we turned him out. Twice.

On our tour of the MHU we found ourselves right below the commentary box. Let me tell you something. The BBC analysis at half time was a farce. Know why? Because the only person watching the game was our Frank. Alan Shearer spent the whole half on his phone and Gary Lineker was stuffing his face (with Walkers, obviously) Also, Shearer was having his head powdered before they went back on air. I swear on Harry F*cking Kane’s ankle.

After the break we’d fashioned two half chances in the first five minutes, one for Diego and one for Dave, but it was our little magician, Kante who broke the deadlock with an outstanding long range strike. One does not put those past De Gea easily.

Some shocking defending on the hour mark almost let the visitors in it. Luiz was undone, leaving Captain Cahill in a foot race with Rashford, but luckily Courtois blocked the shot after the United man’s rampage up the pitch. A minute later Diego headed wide, and Willian put another over the bar shortly afterwards. There was a naff penalty claim just afterwards, but screw that. In the run up to it, Costa literally took the ball off Pogba’s foot and walked away from him with it on the edge of the box. This is precisely the reason why he is not worth half of what they paid for him. Paying for potential is moronic. For nearly £100m you want a player to turn up and be outstanding barring a short period to settle in. He is categorically not.

So: United did their best to take the game to extra time, but in truth either with eleven men or ten they never looked like scoring tonight. On we go to Wembley. Kante is fast becoming the shiniest player in the country. Another stunning display from him tonight, one up against Pogba that made his criminally expensive countryman look very ordinary.

Sp*rs up next for us at Wembley. Everyone else has roasted them there this season, I was starting to think we were going to be denied the chance. The double is still on, but there is some stiff opposition in our way. And Arsenal. Word of the day: Gangry. Hangry is when you are so hungry you are angry. Gangry is when you want gin desperately but there are 20,000 people in front of you in the queue for the tube.

AC

This match report has been submitted by Alex and make sure you check out the full match report AND MORE on Alex's fantastic Blog - A Girl Who likes Balls by clicking HERE!