Tom Lappin: Roman's riches can buy cup glory, but it will be scant consolation

Published on Friday 29 May 2009 22:58

YOU can imagine that plutocratic toddler Roman Abramovich watching Barcelona's purring brilliance on Wednesday, pointing a chubby finger and yelling "Want dat one!".

Then threatening to have an extended tantrum and firing everybody until he too had a plaything that could torment and tease a middling little outfit like Manchester United.

Abramovich is a ludicrous figure, but his notion of building a Chelsea that will enthral and subjugate world football at the same time is hardly reprehensible. His money has been performing sufficient miracles in his life so far to make him believe it could buy anything. Even if any of his lackeys tell him that this Barcelona side was the product, not of a capacious cheque-book, but of a training-ground philosophy that imbues adolescent hopefuls with the intricate pass and move philosophy from the moment they cross the Nou Camp threshold, Abramovich's instinctive response would be "nice, let's buy it."

One employee who might be able to tell the owner about reality, Guus Hiddink, could prick that fantasy by reminding Abramovich that, but for a Norwegian referee's eccentricities, Barcelona wouldn't even have been in Rome, and the world would have had to suffer a repeat of last year's dispiriting bout between two English clubs.

Instead of the Stadio Olimpico, Chelsea will attempt to glean some consolation for a mediocre season at Wembley this afternoon. The magic of the FA Cup is one of those willfully obscure English phrases that fails to translate into foreign languages. For Abramovich a domestic cup is an insulting bauble, for the meticulously professional Hiddink it is strictly third on the list of club priorities when he took over. Even that little ray of sunshine David Moyes, who probably has an embroidered message "What Would Fergie Think?" on his office wall, is unlikely to get carried away with the occasion. That leaves that rheumy-eyed old luvvie Bill Kenwright to instil the final with a true sense of theatre.

From a neutral's point of view it's a pity that the occasion will lack Everton's one true showman. Mikel Arteta spent five formative years at that Barcelona academy of sublime tiki-taki, and even subsequent spells at Rangers and the thoroughly pragmatic Everton haven't eliminated all traces of that illustrious education.

His presence might have lit up even the deathly surface of the new Wembley. Without him, Everton have a robust, energetic and endlessly spirited midfield (and Phil Neville). Most of the spotlight will fall on Tim Cahill. He is as far from the Barcelona model of a midfielder as Manly beach is from Sitges, a box-to-box player whose trademark is not the Iniesta flicked pass, or Xavi through ball, but the late run and header at a set-piece. He will be the most familiar Everton threat to Hiddink, who managed him for Australia at the 2006 World Cup.

If in the past Everton were a little too reliant on Cahill's interventions, this season has shown they are able to spread the load a little more evenly. After Arteta's injury, the form that ensured a fifth-place finish was the result of contributions across the team, with Tim Howard consistent in goal, Joleon Lescott magisterial in defence, Neville an effective destroyer and organiser, and Leon Osman and Stephen Pienaar influential in midfield.

Everton's problems have been in attack, where the loan signing Jo covered up for a lack of resources, exacerbated by injuries to Yakubu and Victor Anichebe. The late return to fitness and form of Louis Saha is a welcome bonus for Moyes, allowing him at least the option of resisting his innately cautious instinct to cram the midfield. Otherwise he will look to Marouane Fellaini and Cahill for goals, although Osman scored twice in the last league game against Fulham coming from deep.

The two league fixtures between the clubs this season resulted in two 0-0 draws, and paraded more shades of drab than a military fashion show. That statistic at least demonstrates the strength of Everton's resistance this season. Yet it might be a little too much to ask for the FA Cup to go outside the big four for a second season in succession. Chelsea's resources should prevail, although it's likely that the attritional nature of the game will once more allow their owner to make invidious comparisons between the style of his side and the true European greats.