Manchester City already had six good reasons to believe they would end Chelsea’s interest in domestic competitions at Wembley on Sunday and now they have two more.
If the 6-0 hiding City administered to Chelsea in the Premier League two weeks ago wasn’t evidence enough of plummeting morale at Stamford Bridge then their neighbours Manchester United put a big red circle around the subject here in West London.
City will surely beat Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea team in the Carabao Cup Final on Sunday. It already looks the safest of bets.
Sarri-ball – whatever it was in the first place – has not so much deflated but exploded in the face of the Chelsea coach. After another dispiriting night for the Italian’s team, there already seems no way back for him at Chelsea.
Here on another very good evening for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United, Sarri’s players failed him and his supporters barracked him. The Chelsea fans howled derision at the predictability of their manager’s substitutions and heckled his style of play.
Confidence is everything in sport of course and undoubtedly Chelsea are suffering. That can happen. But Sarri does not help himself with his stubbornness and the intransigence of his selections and his pronouncements. The contrast with what Solskjaer has done at United is clear.
Defeat to PSG in the Champions League last week clearly hadn’t troubled United much and that is telling. They have now won away at Arsenal and Chelsea in the competition and that speaks volumes for their direction of travel.
United attempt to play on the front foot under Solskjaer – even against the better teams – and just being asked to do that appears have reintroduced some self-belief in to the minds of his players.
Here United once again played with a clarity and a purpose in the first half against a Chelsea side that has lost its way. If United looked like a team running on renewed belief, Chelsea always looked like a team that desperately needed to score the first goal.
They could have done it, too. Before Paul Pogba dropped a terrific cross on to the head of Ander Herrera for the first goal, Sarri’s players had maybe just shaded things. Certainly they had in terms of possession.
However, Chelsea still look far too reliant on Eden Hazard and it is far too much to ask the Belgian to do everything on his own,
Here in the opening period, Hazard saw plenty of the ball and was occasionally progressive. The one thing he brings to the game every week is presence.
Merely by being on the field, he attracts the interest and the attention of the opposition. That immediately opens up spaces for Chelsea elsewhere on the field. That, at least, is the theory but here too often Chelsea were found wanting when space and opportunities did arrive.
There is much about Chelsea that is still confusing, not least the deployment of N’Golo Kante and Jorginho. Early in the season, with Chelsea playing well and winning matches, the deployment of Jorginho in Kante’s former position at the base of the midfield was explained away simply by pointing at the results and the Premier League table.
Now it is not so easy and currently the whole thing just looks a little baffling. Kante is one of the best holding players in the game. He has two Premier League winners’ medals and a World Cup gong too. So for him to play out of position under Sarri in order to accommodate a team-mate is impossible to explain on nights like this.
Kante was occasionally dangerous with his scampering runs down the inside right channel. He can trouble defenders. Further back, tough, Jorginho was drowning a little, too often out-thought and out-manouevered by the hungry dynamism of United’s Herrera.
United’s Spaniard is a favourite of supporters and here it was easy to see why. There is a cleverness about Herrera that sometimes goes unnoticed but gets beneath the skin of opponents. Here he was busy both with and without the ball and was the best player on the field even before he scored.
Chelsea needed a bounce to go their way, maybe even a bit of luck. But it didn’t happen and in the shape of their new centre forward Gonzalo Higuain they didn’t have the focal point that he was brought to the club to provide.
Twice Higuain was provided with opportunities to dash in to space beyond the United back four. On both occasions he looked rather cumbersome. Oh for someone with the presence and power of Diego Costa.
Had Chelsea scored first it may have been different. There was not much between the teams at all until Herrera scored. But Chelsea needed character and courage and confidence to find a way back in to the game and currently they don’t have enough of any of that.