Key events
28 min Man United’s goal difference, never good this season, is now in the red again: -1.
27 min Varane and Fernandes make a mess of something simple in midfield, allowing Chelsea to threaten again. This time it’s Maguire who tidies up.
25 min Big chance to Chelsea! The free kick found Disasi in acres of space, but he could only plop his header over the bar.
24 min A throw-in is given to Chelsea, whereupon Antony yells at the linesman. The ref has a word. Chelsea get forward down the right and Palmer jinks past Dalot, who can only reply with a foul.
22 min That was Palmer’s 14th league goal of the season, by the way. What a signing he’s been.
20 min This season’s United have many faults, and conceding two goals in quick succession is one of them. They’ve actually played better so far tonight than they did at Brentford, but they’ve been punished for their mistakes. This could be a rout.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Man United (Palmer 20 pen)
He fires it into the right-hand corner as he looks, and Onana goes the wrong way.
And it’s going to stand. Cole Palmer prepares to take it.
PENALTY TO CHELSEA!
Antony fouls Cucurella again … at the other end.
17 min Nicolas Jackson leaves Harry Maguire for dead, but can’t get past Rafa Varane.
14 min It’s Chelsea’s turn to string some passes together. Mudryk tries a sprint down the left wing, but Wan-Bissaka (who is back on the right) keeps pace with him. The resulting corner leads to a shot from Cucurella, which sails over the bar.
13 min The game begins to settle down, with United having their first spell of sustained possession. Yet another shot from Antony, but still no threat as it dribbles through to Petrovic.
11 min United move forward smoothly. Antony finds Højlund, who finds Garnacho, whose shot is blocked,
9 min Mudryk shoots, too high, but he wins a corner with a deflection. United clear the corner comfortably enough.
8 min Another shot from Antony, easily saved. Are Chelsea deliberately letting the ball go to him?
7 min United get forward with Fernandes free on the right, but he takes too long to whip his cross in and Cucurella is able to block it.
Enzo Fernandez made it happen. He sent a lovely ball off the outside of his right foot to the right wing, where Gusto (I think) has time and space to cross to Gallagher near the penalty spot. He hit a crisp low shot through the legs of Casemiro, who may have blocked Ohana’s view.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Man United (Gallagher 4)
This is far too easy.
3 min Antony’s next move is to foul Cucurella, who he may well fall out with in the next hour or so.
2 min United set off on their first counter, with Casemiro finding Antony, who looks sharper than usual. He even has a shot, though it’s easily blocked.
1 min Chelsea kick off, go long, and then get pegged back.
The players are out there and Chelsea are in a tight huddle. As they disperse, the cameras home in on Cole Palmer, and then Kobbie Mainoo. The future may be brighter than the present.
An email! And a theory. “If you were a deeply cynical Chelsea executive,” says Michael Hunt, “shouldn’t you be throwing admissions around willy nilly right about now, and begging for punishment?
Go on… “Of all the teams facing some sort of sanction, Chelsea are the only ones who shouldn’t give a flying one if they get a points deduction this season, so they should be going all out to get one. Next season they could be fighting relegation or, seeing as give or take the top 15 all get into Europe nowadays, pushing for Europe and so those points would actually mean something. And if it’s a fine, the top brass would probably love the opportunity to spend some of their endless money without having to flog a half dozen promising English twenty year olds as a result.”
As I was trained to reply to readers in my first newspaper job, at the Telegraph: you may well be right.
Meanwhile, as they say on 5 Live, there’s been a goal at Anfield. Details here from Will Unwin.
As the pundits discuss how the mighty are fallen, TNT puts up a fact box that does the job very succinctly. It simply records the league position of these two clubs, every season for the past 20 years. Between 2003 and 2011, they both finished in the top three every time. For four of the five years from 2005, they were the top two (Arsène who?). The first time one of them dropped out of the top three was 2011-12, when Chelsea plummeted to sixth. Since 2013, there have been only three seasons when both ended up in the top four – 2014-15, 2019-20 and 2020-21. It all reflects rather well on Frank Lampard and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
It’s rotation, says Ten Hag. Well, Rashford does often score against Liverpool – but the same goes for Chelsea.
Ten Hag told TNT Rashford is on the bench “for rotation to keep him and the team fresh through a busy period with another big game on Sunday”. #mufc
— Samuel Luckhurst (@samuelluckhurst) April 4, 2024
Teams in full
Chelsea (probably 4-2-3-1) Petrovic; Gusto, Disasi, Badiashile, Cucurella; Caicedo, Fernandez; Palmer, Gallagher, Mudryk; Jackson.
Subs: Bettinelli, Gilchrist, Chalobah, Thiago Silva, Casadei, Tauriainen, Madueke, Chukwuemeka, Sterling.
Man Utd (probably 4-2-3-1) Onana; Dalot, Varane, Maguire, Wan-Bissaka; Casemiro, Mainoo; Antony, Fernandes, Garnacho; Hojlund.
Subs: Heaton, Kambwala, Evans, Amrabat, Eriksen, Amad,
McTominay, Mount, Rashford.
Referee Jarred Gillett.
Teams in brief: Sterling benched too
It’s a bad night to be a highly experienced England winger. Mauricio Pochettino puts Raheem Sterling on the bench, with Mykhailo Mudryk on the left.
Teams in brief: Rashford benched
Erik ten Hag has put Marcus Rashford on the bench, which means a rare start for Antony, with Alejandro Garnacho moving to the left.
Preamble
Evening everyone and welcome to the clash of the ex-titans. Chelsea v Manchester United, so often a title fight, is now merely the sixth-best team in the land paying a visit to the 11th-best. If the managers get together for a drink after the game, they may have to meet in the Last Chance Saloon.
Back in December Man United played Chelsea at 8.15 on a Wednesday night at Old Trafford. They produced one of their more joined-up performances and won 2-1. Can they do it again at 8.15 on a soggy Thursday at Stamford Bridge?
The answer to that is surely another question: who knows? Both these teams have spent the past eight months being consistently inconsistent. Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea can beat Newcastle, in some style, and then fail to dispatch the 10 men of Burnley. They can lose at home to Forest and Brentford, while taking a point off Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City (twice).
Erik ten Hag’s Man United are not much better. They’ll creep up to fourth in the away table if they win tonight, but to prosper in the Premier League, you have to be good in the Greater London area, and United haven’t managed that. They have four points from five trips to London, largely thanks to a jammy win at Craven Cottage. They’ve lost at Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham. Their last convincing display in London was the League Cup final at Wembley, 13 months ago.
United are handing out so many chances that their next calamity may be just around the corner – quite possibly on Sunday, when Liverpool will be itching to make them pay for the 121st-minute heist in the FA Cup. Tonight’s game is harder to predict. You can see Chelsea winning 4-1, as they did at Tottenham in November, or losing 4-2, as they did at home to Wolves in February. Opta isn’t sure either: it gives them a 38pc chance of a win, with 32 for United and 28 for the draw.
It may all hinge on whether Chelsea’s brightest young thing, Cole Palmer, can torment United’s makeshift left-back. If that is Aaron Wan-Bissaka, still rusty after injury, Palmer should prevail; if it’s the more commanding Diogo Dalot, we can expect a good contest. In a crowded week, with injuries in both camps, the team sheets will be very interesting. I’ll be back with them shortly.
