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An end-to-end match perhaps had the only finish it could. Chaos as late as the 101st minute, and pure spectacle. It might well finish Erik ten Hag at Manchester United.
Cole Palmer rose above so much of it to score a 98th-minute penalty and then follow it with that late deflected winner. It summed up so much that the comeback – after the only period of the game where Chelsea were somewhat flat – came from a moment of unfortunate calamity. Poor Diogo Dalot slipped, and the referee felt he had no option but to point to the spot. Palmer of course scored.
Ten Hag will of course now face potentially unsustainable pressure. The worst was that you couldn’t even say his team really faced the same. Except, for the second game in a row, they conceded so late. They have now given up five points in five days due to three goals after the 97th minute.
That just isn’t what should be happening two years into his reign. As for Mauricio Pochettino, suddenly jubilant as he and his staff ran onto the pitch, there is still so much that’s confusing.
For all the apparent chaos of this game, there was one discernible pattern. This was the sixth consecutive game that Chelsea had conceded at least twice.
That made much of this both unpredictable but also utterly predictable. The way both teams have been playing of late meant there was no real surprise that it was open or that there were comebacks. You could have been told almost any scoreline here without seeing the game and believed it – bar perhaps a 0-0. That was impossible after just four minutes.
Chelsea just swept through United for Malo Gusto to square for Conor Gallagher. The midfielder shot first time, but it still shouldn’t have been enough to beat Andre Onana in the way it did. It was hardly a strong hand. There was barely strong contact from Antony when Marc Cucurella went over 15 minutes later, but a penalty was still given. Cole Palmer took the opportunity, as he was always going to do.
Chelsea, you could similarly say, were always going to concede.
It could never have been as smooth as the opening 20 minutes suggested. United have a lot of issues but they also have a lot of prime individual quality, which is another contrast with this Chelsea. Pochettino’s team instead contributed some all-too-typical individual errors.
On 34 minutes, Moises Caicedo played a ball right across his own half, which was yards for a Chelsea player. It is simply inviting problems against pace as electric as Alejandro Garnacho’s.
He was more alert than any Chelsea defender, picked up the ball, and just soared through. The Argentine of course finished. Chelsea of course didn’t learn the lesson.
It is one of the structural flaws in Pochettino’s side that does remind you of the Frank Lampard days. When they are solid in defence, they are prosaic in attack. When they’re flowing in attack, they’re porous in defence. So it was here.
Once breached, Chelsea were always on the brink. It was like all assurance went. It took United just five minutes to equalise, Diogo Dalot sending over the most gorgeous cross. That was matched by the quality of Bruno Fernandes’s header, which was almost Eric Cantona-like. That isn’t the first time that’s been said.
It wasn’t to be the last time there was extreme openness in either half, or a goal.
This could easily have been 5-5. There was a period of the game when the two sides seemed to be just exchanging hard shots on the break that the goalkeepers were palming away. Onana did at least compensate for his earlier error with some very strong hands.
Antony then compensated for his earlier foul – harsh as it was for a penalty to be given – with another inspired moment.
With Chelsea again pouring forward, and United once more seeing how much space there was to exploit, the ball came to the Brazilian on the right. He whipped over an inspired ball for Garnacho to run onto and force past Djordje Petrovic.
Pochettino could only sit there – and then bring on Alfie Gilchrist and Trevoh Chalobah to win the game.
United meanwhile brought on Mason Mount, to the boos of the home crowd. That feels quite harsh given he is a player who has scored the goals that delivered them to one of their two Champions League finals, and then set up the winner in that game. It’s not like he was even that insistent on leaving Chelsea, either, given so much surrounding his exit was circumstantial.
Mount actually performed well when he came on. It was more than could be said for his team as a whole. Those boos soon turned to raucous jubilation.
It was almost out of nothing, from a game that had everything except real quality. It might well mean Ten Hag no longer has the United job.
