Manchester United’s win over Chelsea offers Old Trafford a tantalising glimpse of a future so much better
What was perhaps most notable about Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Chelsea was - for the most part - just how subdued it all felt
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Your support makes all the difference.Finally, well into the third minute of injury time, we saw it. And we heard it. As Romelu Lukaku picked up the ball in his own half, switched on the burners and tore straight at the heart of the Chelsea defence, leaving blue shirts in his wake, the famous Old Trafford roar: a roar of possibility, of audacity, of pure swaggering United.
The shot was blocked; the attack ultimately petered out. But at long last, this stadium had found its voice. It felt cathartic, cataclysmic, choral.
Because what was perhaps most notable about Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Chelsea was - for the most part - just how subdued it all felt. Jesse Lingard’s late winner put a satisfying gloss on United’s afternoon, returning them to second place in the Premier League, but not until those dying seconds did Old Trafford feel genuinely, positively enthused.
“Mourinho’s right, your fans are s****,” the Chelsea fans chided during the second half, and for much of the game they, and the occasional lone shouts from the touchline, were making most of the noise.
The hope for Jose Mourinho and his players is that this win can be the start of something: not only a run that can seal second place and take them deep into the latter stages of the FA Cup and Champions League, but perhaps even the sort of football that United fans demand from their team. And after an abject first 10 minutes, after a mixed first half, we finally saw brief glimpses of that United: in the interplay between Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez and Anthony Martial that led to Lukaku’s equalising goal, in the skill and movement that created Lingard’s winner.
Still not enough of it, of course, not by any stretch. Sanchez had a poor game by his standards, while at the other end David de Gea’s uncharacteristic quiver merely underlined just how reliant United have been on him at points this season. But the way United rallied after deservedly going a goal down against their top-four rivals certainly indicates that Mourinho has far more to work with at United than Antonio Conte does at Chelsea.
Conte tried to stretch the game, tried to spread the ball to the flanks and use Chelsea’s natural width. It paid off, too, at least at first, as Willian capped a superb counter-attack by smashing the ball in at De Gea’s near post. Eventually, though, United’s midfield three began to dominate Chelsea’s two.
The excellent Nemanja Matic seemed energised by the prospect of beating his old club, and played a cut above himself. Alongside him Scott McTominay was tidy to the point of fastidiousness, while Paul Pogba was reassuringly rather than alarmingly quiet, only occasionally unfurling his full range but producing a performance that would doubtless have had Mourinho purring.
The luxury of being able to deploy your world-record signing as a midfield continuity man merely highlighted the difference between these two squads. Pogba’s opposite number at No6 was the game but limited Danny Drinkwater, who did little of substance and was arguably at fault for the first United goal. And for all his heroics during Leicester’s title-winning season in 2015-16, the suspicion remains that Drinkwater is a nice player, but one several notches below the standard required in a game of this magnitude, like entering your Tamagotchi into Robot Wars.
All of which feeds into the idea that while Chelsea are an average squad who have been playing excellently, United are an excellent squad who have been playing averagely. Though they competed well and had the ascendancy for long periods, Chelsea had little to offer creatively beyond Willian and Eden Hazard, which explains why they were unable to keep their early pressure up for 90 minutes.
One or two brilliant players can control a game in spells, but eventually the mistakes begin to accumulate, the momentum begins to ebb, the game begins to drift. This, pretty much, is what happened to Chelsea here. Plainly, United’s ceiling is much higher. This, you suspect, is why they receive a disproportionate amount of criticism when things are not going their way. They are capable of so much, or at least should be.
Just imagine if Lukaku and Sanchez can continue to gel, if the back five can remain solid, if they can get injured players like Eric Bailly back to full fitness, if they can find a way to harness and unleash the mercurial creativity of Pogba, if above all they learn to dream a little bigger. And if this impressive win teaches United anything at all, it is that a club of their size should not be scared of turning up the volume.
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