Mour than you bargained for – 10 Things I noticed from Chelsea vs Inter.

1. You probably think this show is about you – Somewhere in the usual drawn out build up to one of Sky Sports’ Mega Super Furry Tuesday Smackdown Events, a football match was being promoted, but it was increasingly hard to notice. Somehow conspiring to out overdo iTV’s coverage of the Beckham return last week, Sky stopped just short of dedicating their entire network output to a celebration of Jose Mourinho, but not for the want of trying. The game itself was trailed by an hour long documentary entitled “Mourinho: The Special One” which consisted of almost no football at all, and almost entirely dull footage of talking heads talking up the already massively inflated and constantly talking head of San Jose. This passed seamlessly into the match build up itself, though only a check of the schedule would have alerted you to that as the talking head of Richard Keys desperately declared his love for the returning manager, in between slow motion VTs of a man gesticulating handsomely in a nice coat. Then it was down to the touchline with Geoff Shreeves, where we didn’t find out the team news as per usual, but instead were treated to the riveting sight of an interviewer interviewing other interviewers about what they thought of the man of the hour in other countries. They all hated him apparently, but no matter, Keys brushed that aside with another gushing heartfelt declaration of love before it was time for an interview with Carlo Ancelotti, who was annoyingly asked a few trivial football questions before the proper business of finding out what he really thought of his opposite number. By this time the love in had managed to infuriate all the studio pundits and Keys had to apologize as he introduced two more fawning VTs whilst Graeme Souness squirmed angrily on some patio furniture. After eventually running out of songs with the theme of “coming back” in them to run over stock footage, the program shifted it’s focus to football matters for a whole minute, before it was time to go back pitch side again to watch a man sit in a chair, which we were told in no uncertain terms and on numerous occasions, he hadn’t sat in before.

2. It’s a Royal Knock Out – As the game started I noticed they weren’t using the special AIDS awareness ball used in the weekend’s games, which annoyingly prevented me from using the joke about the bad blood in this tie that I’d been working on all week. During the first 5 minutes it seemed like everyone was finding it very hard to not fall over, rendering the opening exchanges a bit like an unentertaining round of “It’s a Knock out”. This struck me as a much better and more tasteful joke anyway, and one I could work in by linking to the fact we were now in the knock out stages of the competition. Though as you can probably notice, I couldn’t work out how. After falling over, many of them seemed to find it very hard to get up again, with Eto’o and Lucio in particular making ridiculously over dramatic meals of rather innocuous looking challenges.

3. Hair today, gone tomorrow - The majority of the first half was incredibly dull, with the only entertainment coming from trying to work out what on earth had happened to Florent Malouda’s hair, which seemed to have been created in the David James salon of squiggly rubbish, and inexplicably had what looked like a hanging basket attached to the back of it. Inter started the better, with Maicon wasting two good crossing chances under no pressure at all and a man who looked like Samuel Eto’o doing a bad impersonation of Samuel Eto’o missed a free header at the back post.

4. Sex, Hugs and Block and Roll – Chelsea then upped the tempo and after Samuel had rugby tackled Drogba to the ground in what was possibly a deep show of affection influenced by the Sky love in, Inter were saved by a brilliant display of last ditch kamikaze blocking. This consisted mainly of Samuel, Maicon and Motta single handedly restoring pride to the Milanese art of defending by throwing themselves at everything dementedly.

5. ‘Sorry’a A – After a brief surge from the hosts early on, the second half treated us to a nearly faultless display from Inter and the forthcoming embarrassing mea culpa from yours truly. In my article after the first leg I lamented the decline of Italian football and damned Inter for a toothless and rather ineffectual display in their own back yard. Well I’ll gladly put my hands up (only lowering them for a second to stop my knee from jerking) and eat my hat washed down with a swig of organic humble pie pulp. In the end Souness got it wrong, it was all about Mourinho, and Jose the house wives favorite got it tactically perfect in a second half that saw Inter carve open Chelsea at will and Goran Pandev challenge John Terry for the oddest hairline in football.

6. The Real Deal Holland Field – Especially worthy of praise was Wesley Sneijder, who despite looking like an airbrushed Freddie Ljungberg, was absolutely devastating in the second 45 and stunned Chelsea into paralysis with his glorious balls. Twice he put through Milito – who with AC now out was seemingly vying for Pippo Inzaghi’s title as the most prolifically rubbish offside trap beater in world football – once he put through Pandev, with a sumptuous back heel that took 3 Chelsea players out of the game, and he also swung in a cross that Motta should’ve nodded home from a free kick. Inter could have been 3 up before the 80 minute mark, all on the back of his good work. For the second time in a week Real Madrid are left looking like complete mugs. They should never have let him go.

7. Luis Luis – At one point the camera cut to Mourinho in the dug out – OK, at one specific point during the hundreds of times the camera cut to Mourinho in the dugout – I noticed what seemed to be Luis Figo sitting in the crowd. I’m sure this is just the way the Chelsea dug outs are constructed, with a hording separating it into halves or something, but it did actually look like he wasn’t sitting in it at all, but just behind it – in the crowd. It’s a shame that a once great name has now fallen so far he has to buy his own tickets for games his old clubs are in. That, or maybe Inter are just cheap.

8. Play it again Sam - And so eventually – and deservedly – Inter did take the lead, as the person who looked a bit like Samuel Eto’o suddenly revealed himself to actually be Samuel Eto’o as he collected another Sneijder defence splitter and punted the Italianless Italians ahead. Cue the sight Sky and Richard Keys had been wetting themselves in anticipation for all night as Jose and his coat couldn’t restrain themselves and fist pumped their way out of the dugout. As a banner that hangs at Old Trafford reads – Not arrogant, just better. Though if Inter fans want to hang a similar one, they should probably get rid of the “Not” bit really.

9. Love is losing game - All that was left was for Didier Drogba to make a scene – again – and John Terry to needlessly barrack whatever innocent officials were anywhere near him in the way big brave England lions are clearly supposed to do. Richard Keys lorded it over Souness in the studio after his school boy crush had proven Sky’s over indulgence in the Portugese valid, even going as far as introducing him as “Sir” Jose Mourinho in the post match interview – or at least I think he did – while the Sky VT boys finally found another song about “coming back” to play us out with. It was at this point we all realised that despite the ridiculous over exposure, we do sort of miss him really don’t we? He is great isn’t he? Albeit in a deeply annoying way.

10. Honda Accord – In the other game that most people had probably forgotten was even being played, CSKA Moscow delivered another shock at the expense of Sevilla. On a pitch that looked like it had been painted in somehow, one Japanese car that hasn’t been recalled to Japan – luckily for the Russians – Honda, somehow convinced Sevilla stopper Andrés Palop that the ball was on fire or something, and that under no circumstances was he allowed to catch it. His 25-yard free-kick was comically punched into the net to give the Muscovites the advantage and as their cuddly bear of a Manager – the unfortunately named Leonid Slutsky – danced around like an excitable child, the commentator declared “they won’t fear anyone now”. Well yes, they’ll probably still fear everyone now. But there are certainly a few less notable names in the hat.

You can follow Oscar on Twitter here; http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary, where you can ask him why he’s dressing as a Nigerian Engineer this St Patrick’s Day.