The beauty of Monday night’s FA Cup Clash is that nobody is actually talking about the game. They are talking about Jose Mourinho. The Judas One as he proclaimed himself.
On Monday night as Jose worked the Stamford Bridge pitch line, the Chelsea fans took it on themselves to taunt him with chants of “Judas”. But, nobody can taunt the likes of Jose Mourinho. He very quickly took to the pitch to remind the fans that he is still the most successful manager to set foot into the Chelsea hierarchy with 3 titles to his name.
The irony of it all was Jose Mourinho was watching a professional masterclass he once would have delivered himself during his time at Chelsea. But, the question last night was: does Jose have the tools to execute such a performance from this Manchester United side? Or he is just creating another drama to avoid the fact his 90 million man can’t kick a ball five yards?
For large parts of the game last night, United failed to provide a cutting edge. Even before the Ander Herrera sending off (a perfect excuse for Jose), United decided the best way to stop Chelsea was to kick Chelsea. It was something of a ‘tactic’ you would see in Sunday League. But, such is the strength of this Chelsea side, they took the kicks and bruises to continue playing football.
The up-front quartet of Willian, Hazard, Costa and even Kante to some extent showed the deep resilience in this Chelsea side. Much of the analysis on the BBC centred around Kante and his opposite number Pogba. Kante, despite his mellow approach and shorter size, showed he was the bigger man. As Pogba floated around the pitch aimlessly, Kante was delivering passes to feet, winning interceptions, chasing down attacks and ultimately scoring the winning goals yet again highlighting Pogba’s inability to perform the defensive midfielder role with conviction.
Further round the pitch, the story wasn’t much different. Chelsea’s back line was rarely troubled by Marcus Rashford and even it was, they have a world class goalkeeper in Courtois who kept the game out of Man United’s reach. In the middle of the pitch, Matic disposed well of Herrera and Pogba as he ran the midfield even before Herrera’s silly little fouls finally costing him a suspension.
On the wings, Ashley Young could do little to get forward as Chelsea kept the ball so well. To be honest, the score line was generous to Manchester United – Chelsea could have 2 or 3 as Costa and Co. regularly opened up a faltering Chris Smalling and a clearly troubled Marcos Rojo who caught himself in something of a cat fight with Diego Costa (someone needs to go through the pair of them might I add).
Overall, Chelsea consumed United with ease and you always felt they still had another gear in them to kill off the match if they really wanted to. After the game, Jose Mourinho couldn’t wait to bite back at the Chelsea fans, claiming he was first and Conte is just getting the sloppy seconds your best mate chases after on a night out. Despite all that, deep inside Jose will be hurting. He has been at clubs who have been involved in 4/5 competitions and been strong enough to fight on all fronts.
The fact is the United squad is just not good enough at this moment in time. Even looking at the bench last night, there were no match winners who could come on and change the game apart from maybe Juan Mata but he hasn’t been on form lately either but none of that got a mention in the post match conference.
The Judas One has always been good at the art of distraction… Nubaid Haroon – Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtMg-fWm7awR41vM1GhVOkA Twitter: twitter.com/rambofyi
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