Machester United-Chelsea: Looking Ahead to the Showpiece Game

Going into the final the pressure is mostly all on Chelsea. United have already won the league and can be proud of another successful season. If Chelsea lose in Moscow, it would now make it two seasons without a major trophy (EPL or Champions League) for the biggest spending team in Europe. 

Can you see Abramovich being happy with that? He is not really getting his rubles worth is he?

Of course Chelsea will have all the hunger. Everyone knows that Utd’s record in Europe is very poor. A team of their nature should have won more than one Champions League trophy.

Fergie probably knows that he will not be considered a true European great manager if he does not win it another time. Out of the current squad, only Giggs, Neville, Brown and Scholes were there for the 1999 triumph. Some of those did not play in the final, but they were part of the overall success. United is desperate to beat Chelsea, who have become a bit of a bogey side for the Red Devils.

2 Key Battles

Ronaldo v Cole and probably Essien (switching wings)—Ronaldo has never had the best of games playing against Cole and you can’t see Essien giving him much change. I think you will see Ronaldo come inside a lot more to test his luck against the less agile Terry.

Drogba v Rio and Vidic—Again like Ronaldo, Drogba hasn’t had his best games against Utd, but you know for sure that he will be playing the single striker role.

It will be up to the United midfield to track back and pick up the marauding Lampard and Ballack as Drogba will be taking up the centre backs attention.

Formations

Chelsea will probably plump for their tried and tested 4-1-4-1. Cech, Essien, Terry, Carvalho, A Cole, Makelele, Malouda, Lampard, Ballack, J Cole, Drogba.

It will be more interesting to se Utd’s line up. The majority of Utd fans will like to see a 4-4-2 formation and get Utd playing their normal attacking game. We haven’t seen too much of this from United in Europe.

Fergie could also adopt a 4-1-4-1 formation using Hargreaves in the defensive midfielder role to check on the runs of Lampard and Ballack. This will be at the expense of Tevez—Van der Sar, Brown, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Hargreaves, Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Giggs, Rooney.

Some big players with big reputations will be on the pitch on Wednesday night. Let’s just hope we don’t see a repeat of last year’s FA Cup final... a good cure for insomnia!