Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United (Morata 55)
I say it every year,
but an away match at Chelsea is a special kind of sporting torture. More often
than not it involves scoring few goals and conceding many, and get this, you
have to pay one of the richest men in the world thirty odd quid to watch it happen. Our terrible record at Stamford Bridge barely
needs mentioning (the loss here made it one win in the last sixteen league games) but the fixture
has taken on a bigger significance ever since Jose Mourinho, Chelsea’s greatest
ever manager, took up his office at Carrington.
Last year’s games
here were a 4-0 tonking and a 1-0 Cup quarter final loss after Ander Herrera
had been sent off. Undeterred, Mourinho ordered Herrera to perform man-marking
duties on Eden Hazard again, and the Spaniard carried out the job to perfection
at Old Trafford as United, in one of the best results of last season, came away
with a 2-0 win. It was highly unlikely such tactics would be utilised again this time around with Herrera needed in
the middle of the park as one of only two fully-fit senior midfielders.
Fellaini was back unexpectedly, but was only fit enough for the bench. So, the
United boss kept faith with the same XI that had beaten Spurs a week ago,
maintaining the three/five at the back. It made sense, not only to match up
with Chelsea’s formation, but also because, hey, we beat Spurs. As the boss
said in his pre-match presser "Tottenham beat Liverpool 4-1, Real Madrid
3-1, but didn't score against us. My players deserve a little bit of credit”.
The main omission was
obviously Anthony Martial. In his stubborn refusal to play Martial, Rashford
and Lukaku together, Mourinho hurts the team and restricts our attacking
potential. Mkhitaryan is a lovely footballer but he is dreadfully out of form,
and had no business starting a game of this magnitude. Mata was never going to
start at his former club given his propensity to disappear in away games, and
his own patchy form, but his omission from the squad was a surprise. Matic
though, was going to be one our key men at his old stomping ground. Chelsea had come into this late Sunday encounter in slight disarray, after being swept aside 3-0 by an impressive Roma team in midweek. The defence, which Antonio Conte holds so dear, was schoolboy like, and the pundits afterwards focused on the sale of Matic as a key factor for their loss of midfield protection. Conte took action, dropping David Luiz from the squad and instead placing his faith in Andreas Christensen. N’Golo Kante returned after injury to form three in the engine room. As always with the Blues, whispers of dressing room unhappiness and the Russian tycoon’s itchy trigger finger were never far away. Chelsea needed to respond.
After Liverpool and Spurs, everyone expected us to park the bus, but in fact United started positively, pressing high up the pitch and doing our best to get Rashford and Lukaku away running against their defenders. This wasn’t a surprise. With City beating Arsenal 3-1 earlier, they were now 8 points ahead. Dragging them back to 7 wouldn’t make a great difference – it was time to win, and banish those bad memories of pathetic away days at the top 6. The game was explosive for a top-of-the-table clash, with the first incident packed twenty minutes flying by.
Phil Jones scored an own-goal volley worthy of any bloopers DVD presented by Danny Baker, but the ref thought that Alvaro Morata had pushed him and the strike was chalked off. Less than a minute later, Rashford had a free header from close range to put us ahead, but he closed his eyes at the point of impact from Young’s cross and it looped over. Had he headed it downward, it probably would’ve beaten Courtois.
Chelsea responded immediately. United’s pressing had one big flaw; the coolness of Cesc Fabregas under pressure. The stylish Spanish schemer was never rushed and always seemed to have an extra second to try and create, and he was so successful at playing around United that his midfield partner Bakayoko, a summer signing from Monaco who had been quite disappointing so far this season, was able to make several piercing runs into the box. He tamely sliced wide when in a great position after a top centre from Zappacosta, and throughout the entire match was able to exploit the hole and take up great positions behind Herrera and Matic. Without Pogba or even Carrick (clutching at straws here) to put his foot on it, Chelsea seized the initiative.
Hazard forced De Gea into an untidy save when striking from the D, and from the rebound Fabregas headed wide. Chelsea’s system was now purring, and Morata was pulling our three centre-backs all over West London with his clever runs into the channels. The former Juventus and Real Madrid striker was a terrific outlet, with his pace (and ability to dribble directly if he had no help) giving United’s defence a real headache. At the other end, Lukaku had a snap shot parried away by his international team mate Courtois, as the first half continued to excite. We were having difficulty in launching counters, as Azpiliceuta regularly stepped out of the back 3 to block passing lines to Lukaku, plus our wing-backs, Valencia and Young, were having a tough time advancing into Chelsea territory.
One of the reasons Chelsea had begun to be dominant was that Hazard was getting more of the ball in attacking areas. Why? Well, simply, Chelsea had three in midfield to our two and we always struggled to retain the ball. But just as important was our unfamiliarity and unsuitability with the back three. We don’t, with Rojo still not back, possess a centre-half who is brilliant at bringing the ball out, and too often we had three players marking one, Morata. This meant in practice that Chelsea could occupy a chunk of our team with one man and thus pass around the players stationed in front, hence why Bakayoko and Hazard were picking up great positions. On the team sheet of course, Hazard was listed as playing up top with Morata, but the Belgian roamed around in a free role befitting his status as Chelsea’s star man. United didn’t assign one player to follow him, and so he was becoming more influential.
Still, half time came and went and we were in it. Our coach had noticed the problem with the space, and within 5 minutes of the restart two United players were booked for tough tackles on Hazard, keen to let him know he would not have as much freedom in this half. United’s centre-backs also started to push further up to stop the space between the lines. It needed to be done, but it inadvertently led to the goal.
Opta had put out the stat that no player has scored more headed goals in the big five European leagues since the start of last season than Morata. So of course he was unmarked to power home an admittedly towering header from a great ball from the ever resourceful Azpiliceuta. Jones had been drawn out to cover other threats, but we still had two centre-backs to cover the Spaniard, but Bailly and Smalling were caught napping and top strikers only need a sniff. 1-0.
Few teams are harder to play against when losing than Chelsea and you sensed straight away it was going to be an uphill task. It could’ve been two as Fabregas played in Hazard who swept a first-time effort straight at De Gea. Mourinho reacted quickly bringing on Martial and Fellaini; It was a welcome return for the giant midfielder, but it soon turned nightmarish.
Let’s not get this twisted, Manchester United have badly missed Fellaini, especially with Pogba out. His game changing qualities made him an obvious candidate for coming on, but it was clearly too soon. Even Stevie Wonder could see straight away he wasn’t fully fit. He was immediately pickpocketed by Bakayoko when dawdling on the ball and was lucky that the Frenchman blasted wide after being held up by Smalling. If he had waited a couple more seconds, he could’ve given the rapidly advancing Morata a practical tap-in for another goal. This was one of three Chelsea opportunities created by Fellaini’s clumsiness in possession and general lack of finesse. He was a direct hindrance to his side for a good while.
United then did fuck all for ages, or rather, Chelsea didn’t let us. The Champions then passed it around, happy to make United chase the ball, content to let the game drift into the closing stages knowing they could counter as the Red Devils pushed more players forward. In the final 10 minutes, Fellaini was stationed up front as a target man, ball after ball was slung into the box, and all of a sudden the mood of the game changed. It was curious that as much as we had been outplayed in the second half, you could clearly see Chelsea were bricking it in the last 10 minutes as they drastically dropped deep to deal with Fellaini. It was quite frantic.
The expensively assembled Man Utd of Jose Mourinho went route one in search of an equaliser, and the ABU’s loved it, I’m sure. Pretty much every team goes direct when losing in the last few minutes, but whatever. It was starting to work, anyway. Rashford flashed wide with a left footed half-volley from the edge of the box after a Herrera cross was headed out poorly. Then an even better chance – a hoof from Bailly, world class chest control and turn in the box from Fellaini, and a shot that forced Courtois into a good save. On the other hand, we were now vulnerable at the back, and Morata should’ve finished off a swift breakaway but got his feet in a muddle and blew a one-on-one in pretty much the only mistake he made all evening.
At one point during this onslaught, the ball trickled towards Matic out wide on the left with loads of red shirts in the box, and he let it out for a throw which he didn’t even take long. A minor detail but it annoyed me no end – just lump it in the general direction of Fellaini, you daft prick. As good as he’d been, he was constantly receiving it in 1 on 1 situations during this phase of play. The ball fell to him in a dangerous situation frequently in the last 10 minutes but he couldn’t do anything, it was pretty frustrating. I’ll forgive him though, he was the only outfield player who really was calm and thoughtful with his passing throughout. It’s not like we bought him to unlock a packed defence and nick us a goal in the dying minutes at Chelsea anyway.
It was end-to-end at this point. Lingard's long ball was flicked on by Fellaini (by now, our biggest threat) and Matic was fouled 25 yards out. Rashford took the free-kick, and it was deflected over. Chelsea cleared the corner, and that was that. Conte had got it spot on, and we were a tad lucky it was only 1-0.
Chelsea had obviously won the midfield battle. Kante coming back made a big difference to them, he enabled the superb Fabregas and Hazard, meaning they could focus on attack. Bakayoko, as mentioned before, was excellent with the timing of his runs, but fortunately for us he made the wrong decision almost every time to waste his chances. But I still do feel they could’ve been nullified if we had played a trio in the middle from the start, but with Fellaini not fully-fit it maybe wasn’t worth the risk.
Did Mourinho do loads wrong? Probably not. Some reckoned we were scared and terrible… We were a lot more offensive than at Anfield. In any case, had Morata’s incredible man of the match performance rendered discussion of our set up largely meaningless? We need our own talisman Pogba back sharpish for the big games. Oh and no more back three. Please. Even against City. Well, maybe in that special case. Obviously, for this game it was fine, but with Fellaini fit again, changing the system to a variant of 4-3-3 is a must for the big clashes. We just don’t quite have the personnel to truly make the most out of the back three/five.
Mkhitaryan was a disgrace, there is very little else you can say. His role was crucial, to link the forwards and midfielders, but he completely failed, barely touching the ball, and committing the ultimate sin in a Mourinho team in a big away game: completely failing to press and show your work-rate off the ball. Given that he fought his way back into the team last season partly based on his tenacity compared to some of the other creative players, this was a real shame. With the Armenian on the pitch, Man Utd may as well have played with ten men. He has been the player who has missed Pogba the most, his confidence is at rock bottom, and it’s getting harder to remember his last properly good game. When you’re off form like he is, the least you expect is a bit of fight - instead he looked like he didn’t give a shit. Perhaps the guy just needs a break, give him some time off and let him run riot in December. That, or hypnotise him into believing every game is in the Europa League. But we are entitled to expect more from someone who almost always this season has started in his preferred position and yet produced dreadful crap since September.
There’s definitely a school of thought that you can’t blame the forwards due to lack of service, and to an extent I accept that. But also, fuck that. (See that intelligent counter argument?) We spent £75m on Lukaku, and despite his great start it’s becoming clear he can’t hold the ball up that well -he certainly didn’t here- and doesn’t create chances for himself frequently. He has to make the ball stick. This was the sort of 90 minutes from him I was fearing in big games when he was signed. The contrast with the all-action Morata (another red target in the summer) was stark. In mitigation, against the big teams we haven’t yet put in a class performance, and it is his first season.
The final whistle went and Conte went onto to pitch to celebrate a pressure-relieving win, blanking Mourinho. Moaning about managerial handshakes should be the sole preserve of Mark Hughes, but the incident did nothing to alleviate the rumours that the two bosses really don’t like each other. Not that I cared about such nonsense – it’s the international break now, with Germany and Brazil strutting their stuff at Wembley. Time to lick our wounds, regroup, and ensure we’re ready for Newcastle on November 18th.
United (5-2-1-2) De Gea 8; Valencia 6, Bailly 7, Smalling
6.5, Jones 6 (Fellaini 62, 5.5), Young 5.5 (Lingard 78, 5); Herrera 6, Matic
7.5; Mkhitaryan 3.5 (Martial 62, 5); Rashford 6, Lukaku 5.
Chelsea ratings as well, because why not:Chelsea (3-5-2) Courtois 7; Azpilicueta 8, Christensen 8, Cahill 7; Zappacosta 6 (Rudiger 66, 5.5), Fabregas 8 (Drinkwater 79, 5.5), Kante 8, Bakayoko 6, Alonso 6.5; Morata 9, Hazard 8 (Willian 87).
