Chelsea 1 - 0 United

Photo: Manchester Evening News

Ahh we’re rapidly losing touch with top placed Manchester City as our poor form in the Premier League continues. I fancied our chances today against a side that was battered by Roma only a few days ago. We had two very good scoring chances but Chelsea simply won the midfield battle and, despite what Mourinho said, I think they deserved to win.

We started brightly and Rashford should have probably opened the score inside the first 10 minutes. I thought we were playing better than Chelsea during the first half hour or so but the Londoners started to get a grip hold of the game late in the first half and we were nowhere near them during the second. Fabregas was excellent.

We cannot really say that Mourinho fielded a defense minded team. He fielded his current best XI and the first minutes of the game showed that our players were raring to go. What went wrong during this game is probably the lack of effort (or perhaps ability?) from our midfield and, especially, our forward players. Lukaku and Rashford were dreadful and so was Mkhitaryan. His early season form has completely deserted our Armenian as he put in yet another frustrating performance. Herrera let Fabregas dictate the game and substitutes Martial and Lingard had absolutely no impact. Substitute Fellaini managed to unsettle the Chelsea defence and almost scored but he looked really rusty at the back with two clumsy passes that gave Chelsea a chance to put the game to bed.

Our defenders did well, I thought, with the exception of the moment when they left Alvaro Morata completely unmarked, with the Spaniard scoring the winning goal. Matic and Young were our best players.

City are running away and, if I’m honest, I really don’t think we’re anywhere close to competing against them. Their forward line is too powerful and it manages to mask the problems they have at the back. Our defence is probably better than theirs but their forwards are among the finest in Europe. With Real Madrid struggling, I wouldn’t put a Champions League victory beyond them. Yes, they’re that good and I hate to admit it.

International break and then it’s home to Newcastle. Let’s hope Pogba manages to recover by the time the International break is over.