For 10 minutes at the start of this match it looked like the United that stunned the League last season was back. We pressed the footballers who've played at World Cups and won Premier League's and International tournaments and forced them to make mistakes and when the opportunity to take the lead came our way we took it. We were looking comfortable and Chelsea looked a little bit rattled. Then instead of continuing what worked throughout those opening 10 minutes we regressed. We allowed Chelsea time on the ball in our half and when we did win it back just quickly recycled it back to The Blues so they could once again probe our defence. Cue goals from Abraham and Chilwell and all our good work that we did in those first ten minutes was undone once again. But it couldn't get worse could it? We never look out of a game under Wilder, we always find a way to at least look competitive. Well, in this match we didn't. Instead of coming out in the second half and trying to get ourselves back in the game we just continued to allow Chelsea to dominate us in every conceivable way and that 2-1 lead became 3 and then soon after it became 4. And not at any point during this rout did we look like we wanted to at least try and get another shot in at Chelsea's goal. So here we are then, winless since June, bottom of the league and looking like we've just forgotten how to be a competitive football team. Let's get on with the review.
Changes were afoot for United for our trip to London with Ethan Ampadu unavailable due to facing his parent club. Oli Norwood and John Lundstram were brought into the midfield with David McGoldrick replacing Oli McBurnie up top. Chelsea on the other hand retained Timo Werner in the starting XI despite rumours of him being rested. United came out of the traps fairly quickly and looked to find an opener. Thankfully we did find the opener within those first ten minutes with a great corner routine eventually seeing Basham laying a ball on to McGoldrick who cheekily backheeled a shot past Mendy in the Chelsea goal to end his run of clean sheets and, more importantly, give United a deserved lead. That was the last of the good things that happened in this game from a Blades perspective (well, apart from Sander forcing England's golden boy Mason Mount to fall on his arse, that was pretty funny) as we backed off and allowed Chelsea (more specifically Hakim Ziyech) to start gaining ground in our half and beginning to pepper Ramsdale with shots. The goal did eventually come with a weak shot from Abraham bouncing past Ramsdale and nestling in the net. How would United respond to being pegged back? Would we do what we usually do and begin to build pressure? No don't be silly, we continued to do the thing that caused us to concede and went into prevention mode and once again allowed Chelsea time and space in and around our box. Chelsea eventually did pull ahead with a goal that looked very preventable. Ziyech was at it again with a whipped ball that somehow found Ben Chilwell at the back post with the ex-Leicester man seemingly not looking like he wanted to make contact with the ball. But got goal side of Lowe and manged to beat Ramsdale to give Chelsea the lead. Thankfully before Chelsea could further pile on more misery, the half time whistle blew and United went into the interval 2-1 down but still very much in the game. Could we do what we did last season at Stamford Bridge and get something out of this game? No. No we couldn't. Because instead of coming out and competing and trying to have a shot on goal we just continued to do what we did in the first half. Give Chelsea the ball, give them time and space to create something in our half and wait until our opposition scored. Which Chelsea did, another two times. Once came from the unmarked head of 36 year old Thiago Silva who somehow evaded the attentions of players that were literally a decade younger than him to head home from just inside the six yard box. Minutes later an absolutely stupendous ball from that man Ziyech saw Werner played in and narrowly missed adding a fourth with his chip bouncing just wide of Rammers post. It didn't matter though because Werner did eventually get his goal with a brilliant ball from Lowe playing in the German who duly despatched past Ramsdale to give Chelsea a fourth and fully kill off a United comeback. Despite now being 3 goals down, United actually now tried to get shots on goal in a futile attempt to show that we were at least somewhat competitive. We didn't score and lost 4-1. Our first real score line in the Premier League where we had a pasting. I don't really want to talk about this anymore than I have to so I think I'll wrap up here. It's got to the point where I'm looking forward to the international break because at least we have a break from watching United probably lose. West Ham after the break looks like a very, very crucial game if we don't want to get cut away from our rivals. Anyway, I'll see you soon, UTB.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHi my name is John and i will be giving my thoughts on the blades matches and all blades related news in this section Archives
November 2022
Categories |