The view from the Bridge

"I said, 'This is a semi-final, I don't care, I play with one leg. I don't care'."

Evra rolls up a trouser leg, removing his sock to display the broad, ragged scar at the top of his stronger foot. After inflicting the first of several Champions League heartbreaks on Abramovich, the left-back had the flesh pulled back together with nine stitches, then again refused to plead injury. "It was very painful but I played with a meat. I was putting a chicken as protection," he explains matter of factly.

A chicken? Is the playful Frenchman taking advantage of his questioner? "Seriously, I swear it's true. When the doctor saw that technique he said, 'What are you doing?' I remember I was going to the butcher and saying, 'I want one piece, but small'. I know some people can say, 'Yeah, people don't have food, but Pat he puts meat in the boots', but it helped me a lot. I couldn't feel the ball too much but it protected me a lot. I played one month with the meat in my boots."

The month included Monaco's defeat in the Champions League final to a Porto team managed by Jose Mourinho. "The most funny thing is, after the game, the meat was cooked. Not ready to eat, but a little bit cooked."

That first encounter set the tone for Evra's starts against Chelsea. Something always happens and the Frenchman is never on the losing side. "This I keep in my head for myself," he says. "And it's true, I like to play Chelsea. I feel something special, something to want to win against that team."

The two teams have dominated English football since Arsenal won the title in 2004. Though United with their three successive titles have had the better of things of late, Chelsea have begun this season the stronger. Evra, unbeaten in the six regular-season fixtures he has started against the London side, knows the importance of today's match.

"I respect Chelsea a lot. I respect a lot that when you win against that team you show how powerful you are, because it is a powerful team. And when you win against Chelsea it is because you win every challenge, you are more powerful than them. Every year for me it is the team to beat. When people ask me which game you want to win, okay the derby, Liverpool or City, but Chelsea is more about the title race. When you play against Chelsea you need to have the good food, a good lunch, because they are very strong. And every time when I play against Chelsea something has happened."

Unprompted, Evra runs through the less savoury moments. The brutal bodycheck with which Michael Ballack dispossessed him to set up a Community Shield goal three months ago. The muscle Evra damaged while crossing for Wayne Rooney to score at Old Trafford in January. And the afternoon Evra was drawn into an ugly dispute with the Stamford Bridge groundstaff.

Evra had been rested for the April 2008 League defeat but joined in United's warm-down. During it, a Chelsea hired hand objected to the area of the pitch United were using, by some accounts employing racist language in his complaint. When the ensuing fight was captured by a photographer, the FA was forced to investigate. After an eight-month inquiry, Chelsea were fined for not controlling their groundsman, who was judged to have been "abusive and provocative" but not racist. Evra had to pay £15,000 and miss four matches. It was a punishment he found hard to accept, one that even had him considering whether he should continue playing in England.

"I was saying it's not possible this can happen to me," he says. "After you calm yourself down, you say, 'Okay Pat. Don't accept but don't show people something bad. You are strong and a four-match ban cannot be like they broke something in you. Keep going, your day will come'.

"After that I was working for four weeks to play that game against Chelsea [in January this year]. The game came, we won 3-0 in Old Trafford, I made the assist for the second goal and I get an injury and I was feeling sad again. I said. 'What's wrong with Chelsea?' There's something special about that team."

Evra's passion for the fixture will surprise nobody who has watched him play. Relentless, ingenious and possessed of a sharp sense of humour, he is regarded by Sir Alex Ferguson not just as a catalyst for the team's play but for its chemistry. Bought from Monaco at the beginning of 2006, the Frenchman was hurled straight into one of the roughest debuts in Premier League memory (physically sick before the Manchester derby, bullied by Trevor Sinclair for 45 minutes of it). The more studied acclimatisation that followed cost Evra a place in France's World Cup squad, prompting a close season of gym work and a stronger foundation from which to express his ability.

In every season since, the Premier League trophy has gone to United. Evra has won the Champions League, the Club World Cup and a second League Cup, displacing Gabriel Heinze from United's defence and twice being elected England's best left-back. With the accumulation of titles has come an elevation of status. Evra is more than just a Manchester United regular, he has become a team leader. One of Ferguson's most trusted deputies, he even helps "the boss" with his French. "He has a good vocabulary but when he does the mistake I try to help him," chuckles Evra. "He say every time 'bonjour' when I arrive and before the game he says 'merde' and it means good luck. I think he likes the French."

Typical of a man who eagerly studied United's history on arriving there, Evra remembers precisely the day Ferguson elevated him to elite status. April 23, 2008, Camp Nou.

"It was the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona and I was playing against Messi," says Evra. "The boss came in the meeting and said, 'Pat, I make you in charge to win the game for us because I trust in you. You are one of the best left-backs in the world and you can win the game for us'."

Barça were shut out, Lionel Messi substituted with half an hour still to play, and Fergie ended the season smiling through a Moscow downpour.

"Every day after that the boss was talking with me, 'Bring the energy in the team'. After that you know you are a very important player. But I need to keep working because I know the day I play a normal game I can be out of the squad. This is Man United, you know. I need to be every game at the top."

Evra has thought deeply about holding that summit. He likens football to a pyramid, arguing that "you need to find the right balance because in football you can go down very quickly".

He believes his career will be incomplete if he cannot help France through this month's World Cup playoff with Ireland and he wants to be the PFA's first full-back Player of the Year. After three straight league medals, Evra feels duty-bound to collect one every year now. When family and friends rebuked him for not celebrating the 2008 Champions League triumph properly, he responded by targeting two more.

Imagine then the anger as Barcelona contemptuously took the trophy off United in May. "When I think back about that final I feel pain in myself," he says. "We didn't show nothing, it was not Man United; it looked like the first time we played together. This is my big frustration, it is not about the loss. I don't say Barcelona didn't play well; they deserved to win the Champions League. But I can't say, 'Well done Barcelona', because we didn't play. We played the first 10 minutes but after that I don't know what went on.

"I tell you, before the game I was sure we could win 3-0. We were not arrogant but we were very confident before that game. I think as well I was confident because I saw how Chelsea was managing the Barcelona team the game before. I was thinking it was harder to play against Chelsea than Barcelona. And that was one of the big mistakes of all time."

It is an error the modern United occasionally have in them. When sent into a grand encounter aware of their defensive duties, every player asked to perform some form of destructive role, Fergie's men almost always succeed. Think Barça 1998 or Arsenal 1997 at an ebullient early-season Highbury. Enter such high-level matches convinced they can overwhelm the other side and a red face ensues.

"It's true," says Evra. "Sometimes we need to destroy, we want to show that we are Man United. You need to calm yourself down because maybe sometimes we have a lot of adrenaline for that type of big game. Just calm yourself down and play with your brain. Sometimes we maybe play too much with the heart. You need to play with your heart but sometimes when you play too much you can be disappointed. It's true that happens sometimes for the big game."

As flaws go it's not a bad one to have. The solution is frightening. "I remember another game of Arsenal in the FA Cup. That atmosphere, that tension before the game was just amazing. We had wanted to destroy them, we destroyed them as well, 4-0. You were running but you didn't feel tired because everyone was running the same way. I think this is the case of Manchester United: when we do that 100% nobody can beat us. But when we do that like 60% it can be more difficult for Man United."

Given the history of the fixture and Evra's involvement in it, we can expect the 100% version this afternoon. One certainty: Evra won't be playing chicken.

United at the Bridge

Manchester United have the third-best Premier League record at Stamford Bridge. Only Arsenal (24) and Blackburn (21) have won more points there

PAST 10 CLASHES
Aug 2009 Chelsea 2 Man U 2 (CS)
Jan 2009 Man U 3 Chelsea 0 (PL)
Sept 2008 Chelsea 1 Man U 1 (PL)
May 2008 Man U 1 Chelsea 1, (CL)
Apr 2008 Chelsea 2 Man U 1, (PL)
Sept 2007 Man U 2 Chelsea 0, (PL)
Aug 2007 Chelsea 1 Man U 1, (CS)
May 2007 Chelsea 1 Man U 0, ( FA )
May 2007 Chelsea 0 Man U 0, (PL)
Nov 2006 Man U 1 Chelsea 1, (PL)