In one of the most boring and toothless displays of football this season in the Premier League, Chelsea held Manchester United to a draw at Old Trafford. The game was expected to be enthralling and full of action, but it ended in a stalemate. Both the managers played it safe as neither of Frank Lampard or Solskjaer went for the kill and rather played a defensive side.
It was expected for the United boss to go out all guns blazing especially after the win against PSG. But he named an unchanged side from last weekend’s Newcastle game, which shocked a lot of fans. Even Chelsea started with a defensive system, as none of the sides wanted to lose the game, which clearly showed as the game progressed in the first half.
With Fred and McTominay anchoring the midfield, the Red Devils made it difficult for Chelsea to attack spaces. The likes of Mata, Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford tried to create openings for United, but Chelsea used five men at the back. Daniel James had another poor game as he looked clueless with the ball in his feet.
Towards the end of the first half, United started creating chances as Mata and Rashford had a couple of golden chances to score. Chelsea’s goalkeeper was surely their best player, as he Manchester United at bay. The second half started with a bit more urgency, with Manchester United dominating possession, but doing very little to breakdown the deep-lying Chelsea defence.
Chelsea had a couple of half chances but failed to put any De Gea under any real pressure. Solskjaer made his changes in the hour mark, bringing on Paul Pogba and Edinson Cavani in place of Juan Mata and Dan James. Pogba had an excellent outing and Cavani almost scored from his first touch for Manchester United.
The Red Devils grew as the match went on and created more and more chances and pushed Chelsea further towards their goal. But it was too hard to break the Chelsea defence down and Mendy came up with another world-class save to stop Rashford getting an injury-time winner at Old Trafford. Manchester United shared points with Chelsea last night but will look to take all three against RB Leipzig, midweek in the Champions League.
