Essien Plays His Part

Picture the scene. Saturday 15th October 2005 at Stamford Bridge. Unbeaten Chelsea against unfashionable Bolton Wanderers. All the smart money is on the champions, and only the most optimistic diehard Bolton fan dares to give his side any chance at all. And then…

Then just four minutes into the match the unimaginable happens. Stelios Giannakopoulos gives Bolton the lead and Stamford Bridge is stunned almost into silence. Worse is to follow, because as the first half develops Bolton are neither overawed nor overwhelmed, and in the 34th minute Gary Speed has the audacity to hit the bar.

But all is not lost. Some five minutes from the interval, there is a turning point. Michael Essien inflicts a horrific over the top challenge upon Bolton’s Tal Ben Haim – the kind of tackle which can threaten a player’s career – and having done so immediately crashes to the ground, apparently in agony.

At this point the reaction of the referee is intriguing. Rob Styles, who has been close by and must have clearly seen the incident, immediately rushes to Essien and puts a solicitous hand on his shoulder, leaving the stricken Ben Haim to await treatment, and sympathy, from the Bolton physiotherapist. Subsequently, and to the astonishment of many (not least Sam Allardyce), Essien is shown a yellow card.

Past performances have never characterised Rob Styles as a referee who is reluctant to dispense cards of any colour, so it was interesting to contemplate why he had shown Essien such clemency, having witnessed the incident at close quarters. What grounds could he have for believing this was anything but a red card offence? Or was he perhaps swayed by Essien’s ‘injury’?

If that was the case, he needn’t have bothered. Not only did Essien recover remarkably quickly, he even found time to offer the referee gratuitous assistance in discharging his onerous duties early in the second half. Mr Styles must have been reassured, as he contemplated dismissing Bolton’s Ricardo Gardner in the 56th minute for ‘denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity’, that he had the support of a player of the experience of Essien, who could be seen emphatically making the appropriate card waving gesture.

In the end Chelsea crushed Bolton 5-1, thanks largely to a devastating spell of four goals in ten minutes. And no-one can deny that Michael Essien played a key part in it all, courtesy of Rob Styles.

Who knows what would have happened if Essien had been red carded, as he deserved to be, and Chelsea had been obliged to play more than half the game with just 10 men. Who knows why Rob Styles believed that a player of Essien’s formidable physique, who had just inflicted an X-rated tackle on an opponent, should crumple to the ground, ‘injured’.

Essien is of course the man Claude Makelele has reportedly described as “a monster”. The only question is, what kind of monster are we talking about here?