Chelsea 1-1 Man United: But Who Were the Real Winners?

The recorded score may be a 1-1 draw but, considering what was at stake, Man United definitely came out the winners in what was the biggest match of the season so far.

THE FORM BOOK

Prior to the match United had suffered from a sluggish start to the season. Granted, they were in a similar scenario last season only to end up winning the league. But a poor start is still a poor start. On the other hand, Chelsea have come out flying under their new manager, Felipe Scolari, playing some free-flowing attacking football with plenty of goals to boot. Even Roman Abramovich, their infamous hard to impress owner, would have been pleased.

Before the match even started, though, Chelsea were struck with a huge blow. Playmaker Deco, instrumental to their early success, was forced him out of the match with an injury during the pre-match warm up.

Even with Deco's absence, Chelsea still had plenty of reasons to come into the match full of confidence. Coming into the game, they could boast an unbelievable 84 match unbeaten run at home.

They had extra motivation looking at the league table. Although the season is still young, there lied a five point difference between the two teams. Win this match, and Chelsea would dump a nine point mountain in front of United. 

A nine point mountain even the current European and domestic champions would be unlikely to conquer. The standard of the Premiership is so high these days. Very often, a championship winning team can only lose a maximum of three games a season. 

Three games. Nine points. Don’t tell me this match wasn’t important.

So lucky for United then that Chelsea couldn’t deliver the mountain. Instead, there’s just a 5 point hilltop to climb. And that’s hugely more makable for Man United. A Chelsea loss and two unlucky draws coupled with two standard United wins is all it would take to get back into the title race.

SETTLING FOR A DRAW

But United didn't just avoid a defeat and a nine point deficit. Towards the end, they actually looked the more likely to win the match. They didn’t totally outplay Chelsea, far from it. It's just considering the recent form of the two teams you ended with the feeling that Man United rose to the occasion and Chelsea buckled.

Buckled. That's probably a little harsh. No advantage was lost, points wise, over United. In fact, things could’ve been a lot worse if it weren’t for Salamon Kalou’s equaliser just 10 minutes from time. 

That’s the crunch though. Before the match, Chelsea had good reason to set a goal to win the match and put nine points between them and United. Come the end of the match, they were happy to settle for an equaliser and not lose their unbeaten home record.

United made Chelsea grateful not to lose, and in that sense, they won the match. 

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

A long season still lies ahead. Scolari still has plenty of time (I hope!) to develop his Chelsea into the best team, not just in England but also in Europe.

It won't become clear how important this result is until the end of the season. But given the season so far, it would seem that on Sunday, 21st September 2008, a great big nine point opportunity came-a-knocking at Chelsea’s door...and no one was home.

OTHER THOUGHTS ON THE MATCH

Is it just me or was Chelsea’s defense unusually sloppy. For his goal, Ji Sung Park was left completely unmarked to score from a rebound Petr Cech unusually let loose. For now, I’d put this down to Carvalho being injured and subsequently replaced during the match. But it was just unusual to see the lack of organisation.

On the other hand Man United, despite missing one half of the Vidic-Ferdinand partnership, gave a strong defensive display.  Special mention must go to Rio Ferdinand, who submitted a simply monstrous performance in defense. I admit that I used to have doubts about Rio. All I used to see was an error prone defender, someone more interested in joking about than being a leader. But he has been a revelation over the past couple seasons. And, for me, he has now overtaken Terry as England’s best defender.

Despite Rio’s defensive ability, I expected more from Nicolas Anelka, Chelsea’s leading striker on the day. On Sunday, he looked like a man playing with fear. At many clubs he’s shown the ability of a top striker. However, missing the several good half-chances that he had, in an important match like this, is exactly the difference between a great striker and a good striker. This would worry me if I was Scolari. In the crucial matches during the latter stages of the Champions League I don’t think he’ll be able to make the difference.

Finally, I liked Scolari's respect of the officials. The week was tarnished with a number of refereeing blunders. So it was admirable to see a manager showing some common sense and seeing the bigger picture. On not receiving a penalty during the match Scolari wisely replied, “It’s over now. He (the referee) made a decision, it cannot be changed, we will accept it.” 

How refreshing.