At the beginning of the season United were told that we weren’t favourites to win the Premiership, despite winning the league and European Cup the season before. No no, this was going to be Chelsea’s year.
The Guardian had us down for finishing 2nd whilst Chelsea, with their new manager, would finish 1st. At the time, I did point out that no South American World Cup winning manager has ever made a success of a European career in the domestic league, but that seemed to matter little to every one else.
Then we had to endure the criticism aimed at Sir Alex Ferguson after he questioned how much improvement we would see from a team whose best players with 30-years-old. Again, at the time I did point out that there was statistical evidence to support what Ferguson was saying, but that didn’t stop the likes of Rob Harris and John Terry having a pop, with the latter going as far as saying this United team had already peaked.
Nothing has been proven or decided since these remarks at the beginning of the season, but yesterday certainly went some way to supporting United’s argument!
Chelsea’s best players are past their best, like Ferguson said at the start of the season, whilst United’s best players have by and large yet to reach their peak. Whilst yesterday was an all-round poor performance for Chelsea, they couldn’t rely on their best players, their most experienced players, to fight for a result.
Where was Lampard? Drogba? Ballack? Nowhere to be seen. They provided no guidance, no grit, no ability. Have they improved on last year? Course they bloody haven’t, just like Ferguson predicted!
Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are United’s top two scorers, both of them 23-years-old. Nicolas Anelka and Frank Lampard are Chelsea’s top two scorers, aged 29 and 30. Where do they go from here? Course, they’re banging in the goals, but rarely against teams in the top half of the table.
All the hype about Chelsea has died a death now. No one has faith in Scolari and following another bad performance against a top side, belief in their team is dwindling also. We’ve considered Chelsea to be our main threat for the past two years, but maybe it really will be Liverpool who finish closest to us this season.
Man Utd News 24/7
Unfortunatly I still won’t right them off, but lets hope after their pathetic performance especially second half will hit their confidence and team spirit, which seems to be lacking this season, but was one on their strengths last. We seem to be full of spirit at the moment, but we still need to beat Wigan and Bolton.
“Argentina manager Diego Maradona set off a fire alarm at the Radisson Edwardian hotel in Manchester at 0700 GMT on Sunday by puffing on a Havana cigar. The alert led to 200 guests being evacuated, among them the Chelsea squad ahead of their trip to Manchester United. (The Sun)”
Once a blue, ALWAYS a red ! Attaboy Diego.
Sorry to re-print this but it makes such interesting reading that I would be sad if any bashers of TheScottishPlayer didn’t take their heads out of the sand and get a proper perspective on Fletcherinho:
“Fletcher has missed 4 PL matches this season, in which United lost to Liverpool and Arsenal, drew with Villa, and let in 3 goals at home against Hull.
In his 15 PL matches so far, United have conceded just 3 goals, the last of which was in October!”
No they are not out of it yet.Not by a longshot.It surprised me that Scolari was so pessimistic.Is Fergie being proven right about their age?Probably but i still expect them to be there by the end.I think though that they are in for a shock at the Champion’s League.Juventus are a tough nut.Stephen is right.A draw with Chelsea could have been exceptable.However it will not be a great result against Wigan at home,Bolton away or West Brom away.Those are 3 must win games.Bolton especially will be tough.
perfectly said Scott the Red hahaha
nowhere near our caliber
Scott the Red – we’ve conversed before and pretty much agreed to disagree but on this ocassion I can’t argue with your article. However, I will say that it’s not simply an ageing squad that’s the problem, more to do with management and letting this situation arise. Chelsea have been in decline since parting company with Mourinho (I know he wasn’t your favourite and can understand why), Grant’s only quality was recognising his own limitations and leaving well alone, Scolari has tried to change things and it will never work with the current squad. I firmly believe that the manager is the most important “player” in the squad, I think you have the best there has been to date in Ferguson and that Mourinho will exceed even his achievements by the end of his career – irreplaceable.
“Whilst yesterday was an all-round poor performance for Chelsea, they couldn’t rely on their best players, their most experienced players, to fight for a result.”
Scott, “fight for a result” ? The RentBoyz had no “fight” whatsoever; even TearyTerry was less than pugnacious. They’re front-runners and now they are eating dust; they don’t like it and I don’t think that Scolari knows how to ingrain the “fight” into his team. Unless they quit reading their own headlines, they will finish behind L’poo, TheArse, and TheVillans – out of the 2010 CL. Then there will be one massive implosion as the rats desert the ship.
Carvalho is going to be a free agent and he is keeping his options open.
Drogba – love him or hate him – is going to take his prima donna act somewhere else; if somewhere else is willing to pay huge amounts of money for an aging, brittle, unreliable head case.
Ballack and Deco – see ya !
Belletti will carry their bags.
What will be left ? Cech, Terry – aging fast, slowing down, and playing like OctopusCarragher – Lampard, Mikel Obi, Michael Essien, a dispirited Joe Cole, an over-rated Ca$hleyHole, Boswinga, Anelka, and Kalou.
Oddly, the RentBoyz might actually be better – a kind of “addition by subtraction” – by jettisoning Belletti, Deco, Ballack, and Drogba but they will miss Ricky Carvalho who is far-and-away their best defender.
Who would have thought it imaginable that UTD and LiverPoo would be TheBigTwo and TheArse, TheRentBoyz, TheVillans, and TheToffeeMen wold be TheNextFour ?
It’s not always predictable how these things work themselves out but I think that we have just witnessed one of those “tectonic shifts” in which the surface plates begin to realign themselves. I might be reading too much into yesterday’s result but the tea=leaves from mid-November have been suggesting that this kind of tectonic shift is about to happen and the second half of yesterday’s match sure looks like a critical moment of realignment.
After JoseTheMoaner was squeezed out of authority and then given a golden handshake to become a comedic figure on Setanta, it was the end of the beginning; now it looks like the beginning of the end.
it’s all a bit too soon to call chelsea finished…I wouldn’t even suggest they are finished this season…Denton, Ashley Cole is not overrated, he is an outstanding left-back and has proved it on many occasions in his career and even had team success winning Premierships with Arsenal etc..Joe Cole is quality, so too is Essien (the only player we’ve missed out on in recent years that I really wish we’d signed), Mikel will be a great player, he’s only about 20..Anelka is quality too…an Lampard isn’t bad (but a bit overrated)…there’s a nucleus of a good team and only Lampard out of the players mentioned are getting on a bit..Chelsea will be able to buy a whole set of new players come the summer (regardless of the recession) and with a top manager (there are plenty who want to manage in the premiership) they will come back to be a force with much of the current team..After all, this is the team that played us off the park in the 2nd half in Moscow, yes, they’re getting on a bit and they are going to need a bit of a revamp but there financial backing certainly means they will come back to challenge and win premierships once again.
I hope they pick up their spirits, as I’d rather like to see the Scouse bastards fighting it out for the 4th spot!
“Played us off the park”, Jake?
I watched the Final again on Saturday night and even Graeme YSB Souness had to admit that even though Chelsea had just about had the better of the second half, United’s dominance of the first outclassed Chelsea’s second half performance. The difference between the two is that United were still within touching distance of Chelski in the second half, whereas they weren’t in the first half. For all their “dominance”, they only created one clear-cut chance (Drogba’s effort).
In fact, let’s put it this way, if both teams had put away their major chances within the 90 minutes, we’d've still won 3-2, with Chelski’s second coming in the second half (Ronaldo goal, Tevez/Carrick, Tevez studs versus Lampard goal, Drogba post) and 4-3 in Extra Time (adding Giggsy’s miscue, Lampard’s crossbar).
Under pressure? Sure. Played off the park? No chance.
Some good points other than that. I’ll not be writing them off this season, either, until they are mathematically incapable of winning the title.
yeah, I may have been a bit strong in that analysis, bit of hyperbole to illustrate my point that they were a quality team 6 months ago and they were better than us in 2nd half that day and they faced the exact same situation at half-time on sunday. Their reaction this time was left wanting but they weren’t bad in first half, laying the blame at Scolari’s clearly uninspiring half time team-talk would seem a little more apt than calling Chelsea a spent force..They will still finish second, Liverpool 3rd/possibly fourth as I predict a steep demise for them as having barely 3 or 4 quality players will really start to tell, not that it hasn’t done already because as I’ve stated elsewhere they have the exact same points as they did at this stage last year.
Denton: spot on about Fletch yet some people still fail to see what a difference he makes for us. Huge player nowadays.
Jake – I believe that you are over-rating Ca$hleyHole. He’s very fast, agile, and has good defensive instincts but he’s not much going forward compared to, say, Patrice Evra who is the whole attacking package. That’s why I say he is over-rated.
Also, you will have noticed that I didn’t say that they would be finished without Deco, Ballack, and the others – in fact, I said that that might be “addition by subtraction” – but I do think that they are stood on the edge of an abyss in terms of this season.
AND IF they actually fall into the abyss then I think that they will have a hard time extricating themselves since Roman is unwilling to spend more money and the loss of CL cash will really hurt them.
Maybe this is just so much wishful thinking but you have to admit that they have been less than average (or at least their own level of average) since mid-November) and that’s why I think that Sunday’s ream-job could be so damaging to their season. There was no “fight” and no “spirit” although I did notice that that twat Jon Obi-Mikel (and JoseTheMoaner, too, for that matter) sought to downgrade the totality of UTD’s victory. Mikel is just young and stupid; Jose would say that, wouldn’t he ?
got to say I disagree Denton, cole is the whole package, he’s proven and was the original world-class attacking left back who could defend as well in the premiership. Ever since he emerged at Arsenal Fergie has been trying to catch up and find an Ashley Cole figure, I think we’ve gone one better but Cole’s still up there as one of the best in the world as most people will tell you…He might be a bit of a nob with a fit bird but he is class..It’s wishful thinking to say Roman won’t spend, I think it could be a Chelsea policy to drive down prices for the summer by claiming there’s a new era of spending, he’s still worth 6 billion, which is 5 more than the Glazers and Chelsea are quite profitable worldwide…Chelsea aren’t finsihed, the first-half was fairly even and they have had some poor form but all the players are still there that threatened us last year, they’re not all that old…We played well on Sunday but it was our combatancy and commitment over the whole pitch that won us the game, rather than any particular gulf in class as the match statistics illustrates. Chelsea are in need of direction but they are not in need of that many new, quality players, they aren’t looking great the day after being beaten 3-0 with some serious defensive lapses (including Ronnie’s two disallowed goals) but I’ve got a feeling they will manage to iron them out and finish a strong second still. After all, they were playing the Champions at their home ground, it was never going to be an easy task, they won’t be playing us every week.
As I have said numerous times the day they lost in Moscow is the day the decline started. Roman and the players wanted that so badly and after missing out thanks to captain courageous and Anelka will have completely knocked the stuffing out of them and there is no way back. They realise that they have never been that close before or will likely never get that close again to Champions League. In my opinion they have never recovered and are a hell of a long way off the rent boys of three or four seasons ago. So close yet ………….!
” they faced the exact same situation at half-time on sunday.”
Not really. We’d managed to keep the clean sheet ’til half-time unlike in Moscow. That goal on the stroke of half-time in the Luzhniki really gave them the strength to believe that if they turned the screw in the second half that they could find a winner.
I always thought if we could’ve held on ’til half-time in Moscow we could’ve embarassed them on the counter attack.
hmm…my memory failed me then, I thought it was 1-0 half-time
It was 1-0 at half-time… I’m also in with Haakon. I hope for Chelsea to recover and make good for the rest of the season and take 2nd place, and for that matter, Villa to take third! I’m getting greedy, haha, but that will teach our Spanish friend to keep quiet
no, they equalised in dying minutes of first half in Moscow ..that’s why I forgot