Mourinho believes Poll has been a constant thorn in his side this season and admits he would be happy if he never took charge of another Chelsea match.

The Portuguese coach's anger is rooted in Poll's decision to send off John Terry during a defeat at Tottenham in November and was piqued again at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

United's Chris Eagles was lucky to escape with a booking for a nasty two-footed lunge on Shaun Wright-Phillips, before Wes Brown hit Scott Sinclair with a challenge that left the young winger with a broken metatarsal bone in his left foot.

Mourinho stored up his rage at Poll's failure to dismiss Eagles and took it out on the official after a clash between Claude Makelele and Wayne Rooney.

He sprang from the bench to aim a furious tirade at Poll, who initially appeared to send off Mourinho. The Chelsea manager retreated to a seat behind the dug-out before returning moments later after realising he had not been dismissed.

"I was telling Mr Poll a couple of things I have had in my heart since the Tottenham game at White Hart Lane. But it was nothing special. I was cleansing my soul.

"I thought I was being sent off but I wasn't. I walked to the stands but then my assistants were saying 'you can stay in your position.'

"I think he (Poll) was what he is always. He had a normal performance when he is refereeing a Chelsea match.

"I just say he is a referee Chelsea has no luck with. If we can have another referee we are happy. We do not like to have Mr Poll."

In truth, Mourinho should have been grateful to Poll for not sending off John Obi Mikel following the Chelsea midfielder's reckless foul on Eagles.

But once again Mourinho was in the mood to see conspiracies everywhere. The Premier League were next to feel his wrath as he complained that the decision to originally schedule Chelsea's home fixture against United for the same day as the FA Cup semi-finals had done his side no favours.

With both clubs reaching the last four of the FA Cup the match was rescheduled for Wednesday, by which time the title race was already over.

"The Premiership is the best league in the world and they can't afford this kind of mistake," Mourinho said. "If we had played in the middle of April there would have been six or seven more matches to play."

"This should be the game that every football fan around the world is eating on TV. But instead it was the kind of game that people change for a soap or something more interesting."

With United already crowned champions and both managers opting to rest key players, a match that had for so long been billed as a title decider was more like a reserve fixture.

Chelsea gave a guard of honour to United before the match, but neither side deserved to win the phoney war ahead of their next meeting in the FA Cup final on May 19, which Mourinho confirmed Ricardo Carvalho and Michael Ballack are certain to miss through injury.

At least Mourinho's men managed efforts from Shaun Wright-Phillips and Salomon Kalou that forced Tomasz Kuszczak into action.

United, who gave a debut to China striker Dong Fangzhuo, didn't manage a shot on target, but Sir Alex Ferguson was understandably relaxed about his team's display.

"I have to be pleased at the result, some of the performance was good at times but we tired in the last 15 minutes," he said.

"When people saw our team, they maybe thought, 'they're not interested'. But we were interested okay because this club has to win all its games.

"It was very competitive. In the first half, I think the boy Mikel was lucky to be on the pitch, I think that was a bad tackle.

"At times it became a bit feisty and hard to handle for the referee. But that just shows you the level of competition between the teams."

Updated on Thurs