Manchester United face Chelsea for the 3rd time this season and the game happens at Old Trafford with a 3pm kick-off on Sunday. As we know United were not at their best in the first league game between the two clubs back on December 23rd. Each time a Chelsea goal went in, United looked more and more inferior and they just could not find a way back. The loss of Eric Bailly in the game did not help the cause either.
In the second game – The FA Cup semi-final- United started brightly and lo0ked more likely to score of the two teams in the early going. United then went a man down midway through the 1st half courtesy of a dive by Eden Hazard who went down from an Ander Herrera tackle – the Spaniard who minutes earlier had been booked barely made contact with Hazard but the United protests were to no avail. The only goal came from the ever-impressive N’Golo Kanté with a long shot which found its way past De Gea into the corner of the United net and besides an impressive run and shot from Marcus Rashford United rarely threatened due to being a man down for such a huge part of the game.
So going into the 3rd meeting of the two footballing giants, Manchester United are without a win in eight Premier League games against Chelsea (D4 L4); their longest ever winless streak against a single opponent in the competition. The last Premier League match between the two saw the homecoming of Jose Mourinho to Stamford Bridge and was the 1st time Antonio Conte faced Jose. We all know how that turned out as Chelsea comprehensively beat United 4-0 .
In the second metting this season between the 2 clubs it came in the FA Cup quarter-finals as previously mentioned as Chelsea won 1-0 thanks to an N’Golo Kanté goal.
Ever since the League loss to Chelsea, Manchester United have been on an defeated run of 21 games in the Premier League winning 11 matches and drawing 10 matches. United have the 10th longest unbeaten run in the history of the League. During this spell of course they have relied heavily on Super-Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic who has had a hand in 18 goals across his last 17 Premier League appearances with 13 goals and 5 assists. They will likely need Zlatan to deliver again vs Chelsea.
The new United boss is winless against Chelsea with his United team since taking over and in fact lost the two games by a combined score of 5-0. For Sunday’s game he does have home advantage which will be a welcome support for him and the team.
United’s poor record against Chelsea goes back way further than Jose Mourinho’s tenure, as the Reds have only managed to score 3 times in their last 10 games vs Chelsea across all competitions so you could say United are overdue a result.
From Chelsea’s perspective, they are flying high having got over their recent blip where they lost to Crystal Palace and will be looking to beat United and secure the League double over United which they last did in the 2009-10 season under current Bayern Munich boss Carlo Ancelotti.
A Chelsea win would mean Antonio Conte becoming the fourth Chelsea manager to record a Premier League double over the Red Devils, after Glenn Hoddle in 1993/94, Jose Mourinho in 2004/05 and the aforementioned Carlo Ancelotti in 2009/10.
N’Golo Kante is not known for his scoring but he did get the winner last time the two teams met in the FA Cup and he also scored the last goal in the 4-0 League rout of United. Kante only has 2 goals in his Chelsea career so far but the Frenchman has scored them both against Manchester United.
When analysing this game it is clear that both sides have excellent defenses with Manchester United only conceding 24 goals in 30 games while Chelsea have conceded 25 goals in 31 games. The big difference betwen the two is that Chelsea have 40+ goal difference while United have 22+ goal difference. As United have only won just 6 of their 16 home league games it is pretty plain to see that Zlatan needs help in the goal-scoring department and Marcus Rashford bagged a League goal last week so he could be the man to help.
We think that United will be well up for the game and will be determined to achieve some revenge for themselves and their boss at Old Trafford for the 2 losses so far this season. We expect a feisty and sometimes ill-disciplined game where it will not be a surprise to see a number of bookings and a red card or two, but we think that the Red-Devils will have enough and will come out on top 2-1.