With the subtitle: Rooney spares Chris Foy’s blushes

A keenly-contested match ended 2-2 after 90 minutes of regular time and Chelsea, who had not won a penalty shootout since 1998 made no mistakes to clinch the 2009 Community Shield.

Manchester United started the sharper of the two teams and Portuguese winger Nani fired the Red Devils ahead after only 10 minutes. Cutting in from the left, Nani skipped past two Chelsea players before unleashing a fierce shot past Peter Cech.

United continued to play the better football and Dimitar Berbatov should have scored when he found himself one on one with Peter Cech, but placed his shot straight at the Chelsea keeper. The Blues then started to find their rhythm and nearly scored from a corner, which saw Patrice Evra clear an Ivanovic header against the bar.

Man Utd deservedly took the lead into the half, but did not make the most of their lead.

Shortly after the restart some unconvincing defending saw a cross lure Ben Foster off his line to punch the ball away, but didn’t get enough on it and the ball fell to Ricardo Carvalho who gratefully headed the ball into an empty net.

Michael Ballack then came on as a substitute for Obi Mikael and started a chain of events that would have a considerable impact on the game.

A coming together between him and Patrice Evra saw referee Chris Foy inexplicably stop the game to check whether Michael Ballack needed treatment. The decision had pundits and viewers baffled as there was no foul involved and Ballack had simply fallen awkwardly.

The German then decided to give Patrice Evra some rough treatment by body-checking him with his right elbow. At this point in time Manchester United were already a man down and as replays have shown, Chris Foy clearly saw the foul, clearly saw Patrice Evra injured on the pitch and failed to stop play for either of these occurrences.

Now at this point in time the ball was in Chelsea’s half and the United players were probably guilty of failing to play until the whistle, but the obvious double standards of referee Chris Foy left another bad aftertaste from bad refereeing.

Better defending and better goal-keeping from Ben Foster could have prevented the second goal, but Chris Foy’s double standards were truly horrendous.

Nonetheless, the sense of injustice sparked the United players into action and coupled with the introduction of Paul Scholes, as well as Ryan Giggs, the Red Devils enjoyed a good spell.

It was Giggs who released Wayne Rooney through on goal and England’s top striker made no mistake to fire past the on-rushing Peter Cech to level the match.

The Chelsea players made no mistake during the penalty shootout while Ryan Giggs, as well as Patrice Evra failed to convert their attempts. Evra has now missed two penalties in a row and maybe should not be so high up the list of penalty takers. Given him emotional state, I question why he was asked to take a penalty in the first place.

Overall, Chelsea are not unworthy winners and I’m glad Rooney managed to equalize the match – losing on penalties is somehow easier to take, but I sincerely hope Chris Foy’s unconvincing decision-making will benefit Manchester United in the coming matches, which will be more important.