It’s Manchester United traveling to West London today to visit Chelsea at the Bridge. I often find these matches to be overly technical and cautious, almost as if neither is willing to take a chance for fear of the counter. It makes for tense, tight matches where mistakes are amplified. However, I don’t think it will be that way today.
Chelsea come into this match with a two point lead on United, and currently stand top of the table in the Barclay’s Premier League. The Blues hold a perfect record in five home matches, having only conceded one time while scoring fifteen times. In United’s five away contests thus far, they have three victories and two losses, falling to Burnley and Liverpool, and scoring ten goals whilst conceding four. Both teams are in decent fettle, with Chelsea’s main injury concern being Jose Bosingwa and United’s being Rio Ferdinand. Ji-Sung Park and Owen Hargreaves are still missing for Sir Alex, but neither looked to have a big role in a match like this, although when healthy (which is never) Hargreaves is a difference-maker against players like Ballack and Lampard.
The reasons why Chelsea will prevail today are many, but the two most prominent are belief in one another and brute force. Chelsea started to come back together as a cohesive group under Guus Hiddink last season, demonstrating their faith in one another and playing hard to help each other get into positions to win. They are a unit, despite it being fairly obvious that not many of them actually care for Michael Ballack. The brute force comes in the play of three men in particular, John Terry, Mikael Essien and Didier Drogba. Drogba has been in white-hot form lately, having scored nine times in the Premier League, and fourteen times overall. He has been a one-man wrecking machine, and when he’s in this type of form and the opponent will be missing one of it’s top defenders, times could be tough for United this afternoon. Chelsea has sorted out it’s issues playing in their manager’s diamond midfield formation, and now will add Yuriy Zhirkov back into the mix along with a rising Deco, Frank Lampard, Ballack, Essien, Florent Malouda, and Joe Cole. Drogba and Nicolas Anelka up front have finally gelled into a unit, and are a scary duo. Chelsea’s main weakness, if there is one, is wing defense, but Ashley Cole and Branislav Ivanovic have plenty of experience and have great central defenders behind them in the form of John Terry and Rico Carvalho, and a fine keeper in Petr Cech. Chelsea is loaded.
United has had a season full of fits and starts. They won at Birmingham, but then lost at Burnley. Five straight wins were followed by a draw home to Sunderland. A defeat of Bolton was followed by the loss to Liverpool, and then came a dour win against Blackburn last weekend. Sir Alex Ferguson has been raging at referees all season long and has invoked the wrath of the FA. The side has looked disjointed and out of sorts, and only occasionally like the world-beaters of the last three seasons. Wayne Rooney has been consistently giving fine effort, having netted 7 times in the league and eight times overall, but huge signing Dimitar Berbatov continues to mystify having only 4 tallies thus far. New signing Michael Owen has given the best effort he’s capable of at this point with four scores. The Red Devils clearly are missing Summer departures Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo. Their set pieces have suffered accordingly and their team speed is diminished noticeably. They still defend with anger and vim, but not nearly as effectively as they very rarely have had the same group out there consistently. Johnny Evans has noticeably emerged as a solid Prem-level player at this point, but I’m sure Fergie would much rather have his preferred group of Ferdinand, Vidic and Van Der Sar available for duty. They rarely have been. If anyone will make a difference today in London, it’s likely to be Antonio Valencia, who’s form has improved and has bedded in quite nicely into the Red Devils attacking options. He only has three scores thus far but his footwork, sneaky pace and head for the game have really made him dangerous. United need Berbatov to get going. They did not pay £32M for this type of production. He needs to be a difference-maker, not a distributor. They just do not have enough positives at this point to suggest they might triumph or even stay even in a match of this level.
I like Chelsea to cruise to a 2-0 victory today and not really be troubled in doing so.
In other news, MLS will solidify it’s final four tonight as Houston hosts Seattle after last weekend’s nil-nil, and Los Angeles hosts Chivas USA following a 2-2 result last week. Chicago moved into the semi-finals after a solid and exciting 2-0 win over the Revolution last evening, and they will face Real Salt Lake. There is a tasty Italian matchup this afternoon as Internazionale take on Roma. Werder Bremen hosting Borussia Dortmund highlights a small German contingent of matches. There is a tasty Russian fixture on as I write this as CSKA Moscow is hosting FK Rubin Kazan in the Premier League. It’s a fine day, really, so enjoy it. Oh, and for all of you Phil Brown supporters, news broke last night in the Mail that the embattled Hull City manager will be getting the sack after today’s match against Stoke City regardless of the outcome. So there’s that to look forward to.
Television listings courtesy of Jamie Trecker, all times EST.
SUNDAY
CSKA v Rubin Kazan 0600 Setanta
Falkirk v Celtic 0645 Setanta P
Hull v Stoke 0830 Setanta
AZ v Feyenoord 0830 ESPND/360
ADO Den Haag v PSV 0830 ESPN360
Lazio v AC Milan 0900 FSC/FSE
Genoa v Siena 0900 ESPN360
Wigan v Fulham 1000 Set X (SDD Setanta 1300)
West Ham v Everton 1000 (SDD FSC 1700)
U17WC: Colombia v Turkey 1000 ESPN360/Gala
Gijon v Espanyol 1100 DTV
Santander v Bilbao 1100 DTV
Lille v Bordeaux 1100 Setanta
Chelsea v Man U 1100 FSC/FSE
Werder v Dortmund 1125 ESPN360 (SDD 1500 ESPND)
Valencia v Zaragoza 1300 ESPN2/D/360
Fluminense v Palmeiras 1300 GolTV
Maritimo v Porto 1300 ESPN360
Morelia v UNAM Pumas 1300 FSE
Toluca v Pachuca 1300 Telemundo
U17WC: Suisse v Italy 1300 ESPN360
Inter v Roma 1430 FSC
Sevilla v Villarreal 1500 GolTV
Lyon v Marseille 1500 Setanta
Dynamo v Sounders 1500 Telefutura
America v Monterrey 1730 Univision
Tecos v Queretaro 1800 Galavision
LA v Chivas 1930 ESPN2
Did anyone else notice that on the Premier League website that Phil Brown was not the quote of the game? Does this mean he will be sacked tomorrow?