Dimolished, Destrooyed: Chelsea Feel the Blues

January 11, 2009

United needed to perform, they performed: They needed goals, they got goals. And they did this all against title rivals Chelsea.

A comprehensive victory is just what the doctor ordered to give United’s title hope a vital kick in the right direction. If there is one thing that the Reds have been lacking this season it is goals – United have scored only one goal on 10 occasions in the Premier League this season. Which is just simply not good enough by the standards of the defending champions, especially with the amount of attacking talent in the team. But fear not, as we all know the second half of the season is traditionally United’s stronger period and they certainly showed it against their London rivals. Now I wouldn’t say that they played Chelsea of the pitch today but the score line is well justified and it could well have been more, and it should have been at least four if the unfortunate Ronaldo hadn’t been wrongly flagged off side.

I don’t think that anyone who lives outside of Scolari’s head will ever know or understand the logic behind leaving top scorer Anelka on the bench. But what we do know is that without him the Londoners struggled in front of goal. Whereas United proved that they don’t have the same ‘one man’ problem with 3 goals coming from 3 different sources.

Nemanja Vidic opened the scoring after heading in Giggs’ twice taken corner right on the stroke of half time. Incidentally Giggs’ first effort was converted by Ronaldo, only to be ruled out and the corner ordered to be retaken. Rooney then doubled the lead on 63 minutes when Evra’s cross missed the head of Berbatov only to fall for the England man. United looked comfortable with their lead as Chelsea could feel their superb away record and their points advantage falling away. And on 87 minutes the big Bulgarian got in on the act turning home Ronaldo’s free kick. Berbatov made it 3 and the Blues suffered a heavy defeat.

Scolari’s men put in another disappointing performance as the damage to their title hopes is looking like it has already been done. Chelsea do still sit second in the table but anyone with a Maths GCSE will know that United, although in third are in a much healthier position to mount a challenge to early front runners Liverpool. For those of you who don’t know, United sit on 41 points, just 5 behind Liverpool but with 2 games in hand, win those and normal service is resumed just in time to stop Gerrard and company suffering Acrophobia.

Toby Bowen

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.