Manchester United went into this game with a well publicised run of four consecutive losses, and needed a boost, not only to keep them in and amongst the front runners in the Premiership, but to take some pressure off of their manager. Chelsea’s poor first half of the season had cost Mourinho his job, and now the team look to rebuild their campaign under Hiddink. As the team sheets were revealed, we saw that Chelsea had no recognised striker in the squad, with Costa suspended and Remy & Falcao not fit, but the new Blues boss gave nothing much away pre-game. He hinted about the attacking players in his team having freedom in movement and a ‘wait and see’ attitude towards the system, although we assumed Hazard would start the most advanced. United re-called captain Rooney to the starting line-up, as he had an impact from the bench in the last game.

Both teams fielded variants of a 4-2-3-1 formation. Chelsea brought in Zouma for an injured Cahill, and Mikel came in where Fabregas would have taken up position alongside Matic. Willian and Pedro occupied wide positions, with Oscar behind Hazard centrally. United pushed Rooney into a forward role, with Martial out wide on the left and Mata on the right (although he didn’t really stay there). Schweinsteiger came back after his suspension to partner Schneiderlin in the middle, with Darmian and Young as full-backs. Herrera was the one who was put into the number 10 role behind Rooney. Depay and Fellaini were the main two that Van Gaal could look to on the bench to come on if needed and impact the game, and Hiddink was even more limited – with Ramires the most experienced dice to role.

Early United pressure

From the kick-off, Man United started the much brighter team, and it was pretty clear they wanted to make an impression with more urgency – you could tell that it wasn’t an ordinary game for them. The first major chance came via a nice pass inside from Rooney to Mata on the right, no one was tight enough to Mata who got a shot away that smashed into the frame of the goal and away to safety. From that, Martial had his first exchange with Darmian on the opposite wing, which lead to a cross and eventually out for a corner. The pressure was broken up slightly by a Chelsea attack, when Blind slipped and Hazard got a cross in – strangely enough it was Young being the only United man in the middle to stop it reaching Pedro, who was in acres of space coming in at the back post. From the resulting corner, De Gea made a fantastic reaction save to deny Terry scoring a powerful header. United’s aerial defence from balls into their area was questionable all game, although Chelsea never really took advantage of this, and on this occasion it was Rooney who was closest to Terry, but never matching his run.

Chelsea didn’t make it a priority to close down the United players in their half, which allowed time and space to players on the ball. Blind carried it over the halfway-line on one occasion as Hazard and Oscar stood and watched, the ball eventually was worked out to Young on the right in an advanced position. Possibly more dangerously, Chelsea neglected to mark Schweinsteiger and/or Schneiderlin on several occasions, allowing them space to operate. This in turn meant that they had the option and freedom to bring more players into play – notably the wide men (pic below). Rooney was dropping deep at times, as he does, to try and get involved with the play more, but this drew him into Matic and Mikel’s territory. United’s main threat appeared to be down the left hand side with Martial and Darmian on the wing. A comparison we can make here is with what we saw in Arsenal’s win over Manchester City a few days ago. Koscielny would come out of defence with the ball, and look to play it in to Ozil along the floor, who would get between the lines and drift out to the left to receive it. In tonight’s case, Blind came forward slightly, and played the ball into Rooney who came deep between the lines, but was followed by Zouma. United weren’t really allowed to dictate any meaningful attacks from this central area (which may have been different if it was Fabregas instead of Mikel there), although they were allowed to use this area to spread the play out wide from. Ozil had space to operate in that and find a more direct route to goal, as Toure had offered this by not tracking back, whereas Mikel and Matic were more defensive minded and spatially aware. However, just after Blind’s ball into Rooney was returned to him, the Dutchman came forward again and found the much more penetrative route down the outside left to Darmian, who had space open up by Martial’s clever run inside.

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