Chelsea defeated Manchester United 2-0 at Stamford Bridge – but the final result doesn’t tell the whole story.
A second-half surge gave the Blues all three points, thanks to goals from Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer.
It was quite the contrast compared to the first half, in which the Red Devils were the far superior side. So let’s start there.
How did Man United turn an encouraging game against Chelsea into a nightmare?
Promising first half
As entertaining as the first half of Chelsea vs Man United was for neutral fans, it was also sloppy in similar proportions.
The Blues took a lot of poor touches while the Red Devils misplaced – and forced – a lot of risky passes. This led to them losing possession in central areas quite often, which would come back to bite them later on.
But it was a different kind of game in which both sides shared possession evenly. Sometimes it’s due to both teams trying to maximise their time on the ball and control the game. This time, it was due to the two teams trying to maximise transition opportunities instead. And this favoured United.
Of those four big chances missed in the opening 45 minutes, three were from the Red Devils. Amad Diallo was responsible for two of them alone, but created a lot of the opportunities for himself, whether it was from taking defenders on or pressing and recovering possession.
The first half was basically how Michael Carrick has been trying to get United to play ever since he got there in January. It reminded their best moments from the second half of last season.
Bryan Mbeumo and Diallo did it all down the right-hand side, but the team simply couldn’t convert chances into goals. Which is a nice segway into the next topic.
Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez the villains
Bruno Fernandes missed Man United’s best goalscoring opportunity of the game in the 19th minute. It would have been the perfect moment to put them ahead and facilitate their play style, while also redeeming himself in his first game back after being dropped.
Instead, he finished the game with one big chance missed and a season-high in possessions lost. He did make up for it by one of the clear-cut opportunities Diallo failed to put away, but his overall performance was quite negative all things considered.
Another player who has attracted attention due to controversial comments was Lisandro Martinez, who basically buried Man United this afternoon.
We can point out many mistakes in the lead-up to Rogers’ goal, but none greater than Martinez’s. Bruno put Mbeumo in a tough spot in the middle of the park and the Cameroonian himself could have done a lot better. Carlos Baleba also went soft for the challenge and lost it to Romeo Lavia.
Harry Maguire had to track Estevao’s run on the left and Andrey Santos was trying to block the pass. But the Argentine had only Rogers to focus on, since Diogo Dalot was already in Palmer’s way. And it was Martinez’s passivity that allowed Chelsea’s No.17 to walk his way towards Senne Lammens.
To top it all off, he gave away a penalty and got sent off in the same play, which increased the Red Devils’ deficit and left them with 10 men to try and fight back.
Chelsea take control
Despite all of the above, Chelsea do deserve some credit. Xabi Alonso smartly adjusted and had his men push Man United backwards to start the second half after a back-and-forth first half.
After a nearly even possession share in the opening 45 minutes, the Blues spent 67% of the time with the ball in the second half. The red card certainly helped, but they had 61% possession from the 46th to the 64th minute. It was a strategical change in approach.
There was one external factor that also favoured their dominance. Man United put more bodies back than usual today at Stamford Bridge, since their defensive transitions are poor.
Michael Carrick made up for it by defending with all 10 outfield players behind the ball whenever possible. And it helped. Chelsea’s only big chance of the first half was when Maguire inadvertently lost possession at the back and allowed Pedro Neto to go through on goal.
Speaking of which, the decision to play the Portuguese winger as a centre-forward made sense from the standpoint of having him run in behind against a slow centre-back pairing. It just didn’t work because the long balls ended up going at him to instead of through him.
But Chelsea dominating possession also turned the game into a similar version of the first 15 minutes. Then, the Blues spent 58% of the time on the ball and it’s precisely when United made more mistakes trying to get out of the back.
This same problem reappeared for the Red Devils, who started losing possession in central zones yet again. The first time it happened after the break, in fact, led to Rogers’ goal. It could have led to a third, but Estevao was just offside and saw his brilliant strike disallowed.
We must also mention Romeo Lavia here, because it’s not like Man United simply lost the ball, The Belgian was there seemingly every single time to steal it back, recording game-highs 14 recoveries and 4 tackles. Plus 4 interceptions to go along, one less than Wesley Fofana.
In the end, Man United’s best moments were considerably better than Chelsea’s. That’s not to say the Blues don’t deserve credit for taking their chances. But the match was dictated much more by what the Red Devils did or didn’t do rather than the other way around.