Manchester United fails to win again, as they played out a 1-1 draw with Chelsea at the Old Trafford. The result from the Old Trafford game and that of Saturday’s from Spurs and Arsenal, clearly shows this season’s fight for a top-four spot is as uncertain and entertaining as that of the race for the title between Liverpool and City, with two more games left to be played.
Manchester United fails to take home all three points, having taken the lead in the early minutes of the game, through ex-Chelsea man, Juan Mata, but Maurizio Sarri’s men were levelled just before half-time, as goalkeeper De Gea once again, fumbled an Antonio Rudiger’s long-range effort into the path of defender, Marcos Alonso, who made no mistake with a superb finish to put the visitors level.
The game as expected, started well for the host, Manchester United, with the likes of Lukaku, Paul Pogba and Luke Shaw combining very well to trouble the Chelsea defence for the opening goal. This gave the home fans some hope, as a win would have pushed United level with Chelsea on 70-points, but would have remained 5th on poor goal difference, and Arsenal 6th.
Both sides lost central defenders to worrying-looking knee injuries in the second period with Chelsea seeing Rudiger hobble off on 65 minutes and United’s Eric Bailly following him down the tunnel six minutes later.
Before the game, Manager Maurizio Sarri had warned that his players would have to keep themselves in the game in the first 10-15 minutes if they want to get anything from the game. Chelsea defence as suspected by the Coach, fell within that time. But they were able to push and get a result from the game, making it the first time they will be getting a result away from the top six teams this season.
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who before the game was confident his players were going to respond and come out with a win, put out a surprised line up of Matic, Ander Herrera, Paul Pogba, Lukaku, Mata, Luke Shaw, Lindelof, De Gea, Baily, Young, Rashford…and although they played well in the first half, they showed in the second half that they were still fragile, and were lucky, as Chelsea and Higuain failed to punish them in the last minutes of the game..
The game ended in a 1-1 draw, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be hoping for a miracle to happen for his team to qualify for the Champions League spot. But for now, he did better start preparing his team for the Europa League games on Thursdays…Oops!