PREVIEW: Red-hot Chelsea to sink United at the Bridge?

Chelsea

How silly did we look! What were we thinking suggesting that the Chelsea defence was vulnerable and ready to be taken advantage of? I thought Leicester would be a real threat in the final third and ask real questions of Thomas Tuchel’s defensive wall, we all knew the Foxes leak goals and so ultimately both teams to score was a set bet.

The reality, however, is that Chelsea suffocated Leicester, suffocated them to the point that there was no point in that game where the home side looked like they could score. This is a side who under Brendan Rodgers have an average of 3.11 total goals per match over their past two seasons.

We’ve all heard the lamentation that Championship winning teams can grind out results, and I completely agree, but in this Chelsea team, you have a side who continue to be clinical and comfortable in front of goal whilst maintaining a seemingly unmatchable aggression in defence.

I must be honest, I’m not sure what else I can say about this Chelsea side without sounding like a bit of a stuck record. But when you have a side who have not conceded more than a single goal in a game so far this season (twelve in total), with defenders have scored 43% of the goals and a team who have conceded just one more goal that Mourinho’s 2004/05 side – you start to get the picture…

Manchester United

It’s difficult to ascertain United’s position at the moment. I think it was the correct decision to part ways with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but the issues at that football club run much deeper than that.

The individual brilliance available at United is well documented, the stature and pedigree which underpins Old Trafford is also accepted…but none of that really makes a difference if there is a disconnect between management and the team on the ground. United have lost a bit of their identity on the field, and I say that with the greatest amount of respect. Solskjaer did an incredible job in restoring the culture and heartbeat, he’ll always be a club legend, but the football was difficult to watch at times.

United have no base to launch any sort of potent attack, and inevitably that eliminates their best players from the game. There is a severe lack of intensity when they lose the ball and in the Premier League that will always be punished. The Red Devils have won just once from their last five games – shipping an embarrassing 15 goals in the process!

I know we haven’t even reached December yet, but surely the focus is now to almost save face or selvage a degree of self-respect and look forward to the next season (listen at me, I’m starting to sound like those ‘next season’ fans already).