FT: 1-1. Good, hard earned point, given the circumstances. Not the prettiest, especially in the opening period, but showed lots of resilience at the back.
Best we could hope for realistically. On the plus side, there was some great effort shown by the team. Focus also given how many set-pieces they had to defend.
We it would take a point going in and we got a point. The fact that we led for a few moments made the idea of three really eye opening but in the end a point will do. Ralf starts this week, and I don't expect wholesale changes but we will tweak from this week to next.
📊 Fred vs Chelsea: 32 attempted passes 26 successful passes 9 ball recoveries 4 passes into the final 1/34 attempted tackles4 interceptions3 fouls suffered2 successful tackles0 fouls committed[@StatmanDave] pic.twitter.com/MfOmrCThJI— UtdDistrict (@UtdDistrict) November 28, 2021 Fred shooting or in a position to do so will always be a problem. That's not what he's there for mainly. And based on his primary mandate, he was good for us today. Based on what he can do and what his strengths are, I can not wait to see what Rangnick does with him. He no doubt, will have a huge part to play in his system.
Hasselbank stuck in the middle while Keane and Carragher go at it, is kind of hilarious! Not a pretty display by any means, but one full of grit and resolve (which has been missing from this United team often this season). Really hope that we'll see more of Bailly once Rangnick arrives. Get that Maguire is our 80mil man and captain (for the time being at least) but it's clear that our best CBs and a combo worth looking into are Varane and Bailly.
Keane goes through a laundry list of things that speak to bad coaching, and determines the issue is “the players don’t work hard enough.” Roy’s postgame comments are embarrassing. Trying to argue with a straight face that Ronaldo wasn’t brought in to try to win the league.
Rashford’s run for that Sancho goal was indicative of his overall lack of development of his football IQ. To spend the entirety of the time in an offside position is just baffling - he was lucky that it was Sancho on the ball, someone with the smarts and composure to drop a shoulder and take the shot himself. There were really subtle shades of what Rangnick wants from us when he comes in. But it did look like we’d had half a week of it, in stark contrast to Chelsea. It was nice to see some of the players giving each other a bollocking for not doing Rangnick things too - Sancho flipping out at Bruno early on for that pathetic shot, Fred at McTominay in the 2nd half for not passing forward. McT was ok, but how he got MotM is beyond me. He had a spell of crunching tackles about midway through the first half but there were 3 or 4 Utd players who had better games, never mind practically all of the Chelsea team. It’s gonna be fun to watch this team come together, to see everyone get a clean slate but also short shrift if they are slow to adapt.
.GNev enjoying the fact that he's not the only one being stuffed in a locker by Carragher recently... 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/cprdhAM2Oa— Gary Neville (@GNev2) November 28, 2021
Some of the stats were far from encouraging, but I think under the circumstances this might have been the best we could hope for. We were more reactive than I expected us to be. Three DMs was overkill. If Pogba were available, maybe we would have had a bit more balance. I still think Donny could work in the middle, but management doesn't trust him. We shut Chelsea down on our right. McT and AWB were great together. But Chelsea did stretch us at will on our left. Ziyech was very smart about dragging players wide. A lot of their attacks came down that flank, but that in turn gave us space to attack them and Rashford did well for the most part. He got Reece on a card. He almost got Chalobah too but the referee didn't want to hand too many out (something that benefited McT later when he got away with what might have been a second card). DDG and Lindelof made two great interventions. Other than the penalty we conceded, our defense could be faulted for very little today. Fred did look a bit like a weak link on our left, but we managed to get away with it. Sancho had two great chances. At least he made good on his second chance and maybe if he were more settled he would have put away the first too. We were a different team after the goal and it was clear Chelsea were panicked for awhile. There was a spell where maybe we could have ran away with the result, but we didn't have the cutting edge. We were too reactive and defensive to make that period count for anything more. It wasn't just luck that saw us through, Tuchel seemed a bit out of ideas. Awhile back LVG chewed out a Dutch reporter in suggesting Chelsea are defensive, but the truth is they can lack an edge and it has a lot to do with those three center-backs (just like us with our 3 DMs today). We can sigh with relief that Rudiger got on the end of that last chance and not a proper forward.
Chelsea isn't a bad team but I had no fear of this matchup at all> A friend of mine texted me and asked me my thoughts about our lineup. I told him people think we will get hammered but I expect a 1 or 2-0 victory and the least is a 1-1 which we eventually got. I wish we had capitalized on that momentum shift after the goal. I think we were too cautious but I am thankful for the point.
If Rashford cannot improve as a player with Rangnick we would have had four coaches to improve his game. His ceiling will always be a very good player due to his understanding of the game. Even Sancho was frustrated with him.
Cold as ice indeed. The composure 🥶via @ManUtdpic.twitter.com/0dKrx9CdiD— utdreport (@utdreport) November 28, 2021