The last word goes to Peter Oh
“Whoever said that Jose Mourinho couldn’t inspire Chelsea’s players?! Tonight is sparkling evidence to the contrary.”
Full time: Chelsea 4-0 Manchester United
Peep peep! Chelsea have stuffed Jose Mourinho’s team in memorable style. They played the smarter, zestier football and fully deserve the orgiastic celebrations that are currently occurring at Stamford Bridge. Thanks for your company, night.
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89 min See 83 min.
86 min The match is petering out. Chelsea have declared at four; United have declared at nil.
83 min Chelsea apply bleach to the wounds with some olé football.
81 min Ibrahimovic draws a fine save from Courtois with a superb snapshot.
77 min A double Chelsea substitution: Willian and Batshuayi replace Hazard and Costa.
75 min Pogba is booked for a hack at Matic.
74 min Costa’s low shot is saved by De Gea, the first Chelsea shot on target that hasn’t resulted in a goal.
73 min Mata’s curling cross is volleyed over acrobatically by Ibrahimovic.
The defending was pathetic from Pogba and Smalling, but Kante did brilliantly to receive Pedro’s pass and dummy Smalling before slipping past him and sliding the ball across De Gea into the far corner.
GOAL! Chelsea 4-0 Manchester United (Kante 70)
Chelsea make it four with a brilliant solo goal from ... N’Golo Kante!
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66 min Alonso is booked for pulling back Pogba. There have actually been a few emails suggesting Mourinho should be sacked, presumably from people who didn’t see the first three and a half years of Sir Alex Ferguson’s time at Old Trafford.
65 min Another United substitution: Anthony Martial replaces Lingard.
GOAL! Chelsea 3-0 Manchester United (Hazard 62)
This is a lovely goal. Hazard slowed the play down on the left before giving it back to Kante. He squared it to Matic, who played a superb first-time pass to find Hazard bursting into the box. He shifted the ball inside Smalling and drove it across De Gea into the corner.
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59 min Rashford is occasionally dropping into the No10 position, which won’t please everyone, though he has been United’s liveliest player since half-time.
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58 min Lingard rakes a low shot towards goal from 20 yards that is palmed away by Courtois, diving to his left.
56 min A typically disgraceful touch from Rojo allows Moses to launch a four-on-two break. He runs 60 yards before playing a good angled pass to Hazard, whose low shot is well blocked by Smalling.
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54 min Chelsea have looked very comfortable defensively since half-time and are carrying the greater threat on the break.
53 min Rojo has gone to left-back, with Blind alongside Smalling in the centre.
52 min Bailly has an injury and is limping off. Marcos Rojo has come on to replace him.
50 min Hazard runs into Bailly, who has already been booked, on the edge of the box. Some referees would have given that, and if it’s a foul it’s probably a yellow card.
49 min “With 3-4-3 looking like 2016’s fashionable formation and Man City and Chelsea both playing England centre backs in a back three, how long do you reckon it’ll take England to try it?” asks James Bolle. “My money’s on 2028.”
At least John Terry will still be playing Premier League football then.
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48 min Costa has a goal disallowed for offside. He was a long way beyond the defence.
48 min United have switched to 4-4-2, with Rashford up front, Lingard left, Mata right and Pogba as a false No8.
47 min “Jose Mourinho 2005, begins Adam Hirst. “Jose Mourinho 2016.”
46 min Peep peep! United kick off from left to right. Juan Mata has replaced Marouane Fellaini.
Half-time reading
“Transparent Apologist Muppets,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “How has that band name not been taken??? Definitely some kind of nouveau-prog quintet. Electric hair combs and synthesized flutes.”
Half-time: Chelsea 2-0 Manchester United
Costa almost makes it 3-0 on the stroke of half-time, but Bailly blocks his goalbound shot on the turn. It’s been a miserable half for United and Jose Mourinho, with some appalling defending. See you in 10 minutes for the second half, muppets!
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45+3 min “I wrote this t’other day and, the way things are going, it’s even more applicable today,” says Shane O’Leary. “I can’t help but feel that Jose has very much the look and feel of the lion in winter and it’s more pantomime than passion, more shrugging n mugging than iron-willed certainty these days, although he’s doing his best to make pre-match analysis more Spinal Tap than Football Focus.”
He just looks very tired.
45+2 min Valencia’s outswinging cross from the byline is volleyed into the ground and over the bar by Rashford, 16 yards from goal. He should have done better there though he might have been unsighted. Valencia has been United’s biggest/only attacking threat.
45 min One of the big problems with this United team is that their build-up play is so ponderous. They really need Mkhitaryan to do whatever he needs to do to get a game. Chelsea, by contrast, have crackled with menace through the movement of Hazard and especially Pedro. They have been excellent.
43 min Smalling is playing like he’s half-cut on 7%ABV cider. Costa turns him inside out on the edge of the area but Blind comes across to clear.
42 min “Now, I don’t normally go in for schadenfreude, and I’m well aware that Liverpool’s season will (if recent history is anything to do by) come off the rails in spectacular fashion at some point,” says Matt Dony. “But, checking on the score after half an hour, this looks magnificent. A good weekend to be a Liverpool fan indeed. I really do like Mourinho, I think the Premier League is better with him in it than without, but I’d hate for him to manage a team I actually cared about.”
Don’t be a transparent apologist muppet, mate.
40 min David Luiz crunches his studs into Fellaini’s knee and is booked. He should have been sent off.
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39 min “‘In truth, Mourinho’s United shouldn’t be judged until the start of next season, because he inherited a mess, but modern football doesn’t work like that,’” says Martin Gwynn Jones, quoting an earlier entry. “LOLOLOLOLOLOL.he spent 100,000,000 on one player, you transparent apologist muppet.”
I love my job.
38 min Pogba plays a smart flick to Rashford, whose angled through-pass towards Ibrahimovic is excellently intercepted by Moses. Rashford is one of the few who looks affronted by this scoreline.
35 min The camera lingers on Mourinho, who looks about as perturbed as Selasi did when he was eliminated from Bake Off. He does seem to have lost some of his edge. Maybe he’s too conscious of how a Manchester United manager should be seen to behave, I don’t know.
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32 min As Gary Neville points out, Rashford and Lingard are defending against Moses and Alonso when you would expect it to be the other way round. United are having a very bad day.
30 min “I look forward to the day,” begins Ian Copestake, “when the hype merchants at Sky and Playstationary, etc make adverts reflecting the true achievers in a season, like Milner or Redmond, and morph them into winged-heeled Gods who leap across buildings before dabbing and whatnot.”
29 min Bailly is booked for pulling down Costa.
28 min Herrera’s long-range shot is palmed away by Courtois, who should have held it, but he bounces to his feet to make a very good save from Lingard’s close-range follow-up. This is a cracking game.
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27 min Another chance for Chelsea! A vicious low cross from Hazard on the right finds Costa at the near post, a few yards from goal, but his attempted shot hits his other foot and deflects away.
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26 min That was almost a third. Blind was robbed by Pedro, whose drilled low cross was kicked away by the stretching De Gea. That saved a goal because it was going straight to Costa at the far post.
24 min With the obvious exception of Monday’s immaculate performance, this United do not look like a Mourinho team. They are ragged at times. In truth, Mourinho’s United shouldn’t be judged until the start of next season, because he inherited a mess, but modern football doesn’t work like that. They could take a pounding here because Chelsea look very dangerous on the break.
That was another terrible goal to concede. An outswinging corner from the right was flicked on at the near post and hit Herrera before bouncing towards the six-yard line. Smalling turned away from the ball for no particularly reason and Cahill - who has always been a decent finisher - contorted his body smartly to smash the ball through Blind on the line.
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GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Manchester United (Cahill 21)
A corner from the right ricochets to Cahill, who rams it in from six yards.
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20 min Pogba will probably become a glorious player for United. But by God he’s a waste of space at the moment.
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18 min Rashford wins a corner for United on the left. Blind’s deep outswinger is headed down by the backpedalling Pogba and goes straight through to Courtois.
17 min Moses roams infield and finds Costa, who galumphs from left to right and then tries to free Pedro with a backheel. There’s just too much on it but it was a nice idea.
14 min Midfieldwatch: Kante and Herrera are playing well, Pogba is not.
13 min Bailly concedes a corner with an excellent tackle on Costa. It came from a pass by Pedro, who should have been given offside. The corner is played short to Pedro, who curls it back to the edge of the box where Hazard, in a filthy amount of space, cracks a good effort not far wide of the near post.
10 min Azpilicueta’s cross from a narrow position on the right is headed over by Hazard near the penalty spot. We’ve just seen the Chelsea goal again; Pedro was admirably alert, but Blind, Smalling and De Gea all had different shades of shocker. Pedro was also booked for celebrating by the way.
7 min United have responded well to going behind. Valencia skins Alonso like he used to skin Ashley Cole in this fixture and stands up a lovely deep cross. Ibrahimovic towers over Azpilicueta at the far post but thumps his header over from six yards. He probably should have scored.
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5 min A United corner is only half cleared. Herrera wins the ball off Hazard and finds Rashford on the right side of the box. His dangerous low cross is well cleared by a Chelsea defender, possibly David Luiz.
3 min Crikey, what a start. As Gary Neville points out on Sky, United’s formation is not as expected - it’s a 4-1-4-1 with Herrera the deepest player and Fellaini and Pogba pushed onto Matic and Kante.
It looked like a nothing ball forward from Alonso on the halfway line, a speculative clip into space, but the alert Pedro scooted behind Blind and Smalling to go through on goal. De Gea came a long way out of his box, and Pedro zoomed round him with his firt touch before scoring with his left foot. United have had a shocker there.
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GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United (Pedro 1)
Pedro has scored after 30 seconds!
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1 min Peep peep! Chelsea, in blue, kick off from left to right. United are in red.
Jose Mourinho emerges from the tunnel almost unnoticed, if the crowd noise is anything to go by. He went to the correct bench, yes.
“My Chelsea-supporting friends are saying they expect this to be like the Liverpool v Man U game a few days ago,” says Paul Quigley. “I expect it to be a 3-3 thriller with mistakes at the back exposed by Costa and Ibra. Who do you think will stand out here? Hazard?”
Mourinho.
An email
“Big chance for United to make a statement here,” says Adam Hirst. “A good away win and a good performance would make it a Bonus Weekend, with three teams above having already had disappointing draws. But Mourinho won’t go for it, will he. Second functional draw of the week will be the best to hope for today I think.”
Would you go for it with that team? I think he’s done really well so far given all the problems, although the Mkhitaryan situation is a little bewildering. They’ll surely be more positive than they were on Monday.
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Mourinho speaks!
“I have to think it’s just a game. It’s an important game for us against a team who have the same objectives as us. I have to try not to be emotional but I would be lying if I said it was like playing another team ... Wayne Rooney was injured in training ... blah blah etc.”
Manchester City have drawn 1-1 with Southampton, so the top of the Premier League table is spandex-tight. It’ll be even spandex-tighter if Chelsea win. If that happens, the top five will be separated by a point.
Some more pre-match reading
There are seven minutes remaining at the Etihad, where the score is 1-1.
Team news
Chelsea (3-4-2-1) Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Pedro, Hazard; Diego Costa.
Substitutes: Begovic, Aina, Terry, Chalobah, Oscar, Willian, Batshuayi.
Manchester United (4-2-3-1) De Gea; Valencia, Bailly, Smalling, Blind; Herrera, Fellaini; Lingard, Pogba, Rashford, Ibrahimovic.
Substitutes: Romero, Rojo, Darmian, Carrick, Young, Mata, Martial.
Referee Mr Martin Atkinson.
Preamble
Hello. There are a handful of managers who have won more trophies than Jose Mourinho. There are one or two who have a better win-percentage in their careers. But it’s hard to think of any manager who has been involved in so many games that were about him rather than the players.
There are a few reasons for that: Mourinho’s success, his charisma, his ego and even the wanderlust of the modern manager. Sir Alex Ferguson never returned to Old Trafford with an opposing team; Bill Shankly never went back to Anfield, and not just because of the restraining order. But Mourinho will return to Stamford Bridge for the first time as manager of another English team. Not just any team, either: them.
This is a game that needs its own Taylor Swift song. A Carly Simon cover, perhaps. It doesn’t matter whether you love, hate or couldn’t give a solitary one about Mourinho; you can’t deny this game is about him.
Kick off is at 4pm.
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Rob will be here shortly. In the meantime, why not check out Daniel Taylor’s theory that José Mourinho may have been more affected by his final half-season at Chelsea than he probably wants to let on?
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