Manchester United 1-1 Chelsea: Robin van Persie bags 94th minute equaliser after Didier Drogba looked to have given Jose Mourinho all three points with first Premier League goal since his return
They celebrated as if this was the turning point. Last minute Manchester United, twice in a week, back to their best. Hardly.
They got away with it. A scramble from a questionable free-kick in the fourth minute of injury time, lashed in by Robin van Persie. A red card for Branislav Ivanovic that most certainly wasn’t, and a rejected Chelsea penalty claim that gets more plausible with each viewing.
This wasn’t United at their best, but perhaps their most fortunate. Jose Mourinho had too much respect for his mentor, Louis van Gaal, to make his displeasure public when they came together on the sidelines. His face as the goal went in said it all, though. He screwed up his features as if encountering a bad smell. It was the expression of a man who thought he was robbed. Probably, he was.
Not hugely. This wasn’t grand larceny. Chelsea were not many goals better than United, they did not thrash them, or put them away. But a 1-0 win would have been about fair. Chelsea were better organised, stronger defensively, executed their game plan, and shaded the action.
To United’s credit, however, they did not give up, displaying the spirit that saw them through at West Bromwich Albion last Monday, and they deserve praise for that. It says much about their development, though, that this point at home was celebrated like a far greater affair, the United players forming a pyramid of jubilation on Van Persie as Chelsea despaired. Ivanovic, by now down the tunnel, will have known what had happened by the cacophony. The sense of injustice would have been quite raw.
Would Chelsea have hung on with 11? We can never know. The fact is, it never helps to defend with 10, and Ivanovic is a significant presence during set-pieces at either end. Perhaps Chelsea lost a little concentration, too, when Phil Dowd issued his seventh yellow card to a blue shirt. It did not seem a particularly dirty game, either.
To make one thing clear: Angel di Maria did not dive to win the foul. Ivanovic clipped his heel on the run, and he tripped. He did not cheat. It did not look intentional, but there was contact and that makes it a free-kick. Intent does not come into this. Even if Ivanovic merely mis-stepped the onus is on him not to be clumsy. So United’s drink in the last-chance saloon was at least deserved.
The booking, less so. There are too many dirty, dangerous challenges going unpunished in the English game for this to be yellow-card material. So Chelsea should have had the full complement on the pitch when Di Maria’s free-kick came in. Whether that would have made the difference, who knows?
As it was, United’s best player on the day, Marouane Fellaini, won the header, Thibaut Courtois made the save, and the ball fell to Van Persie, who buried ferociously it on instinct alone. There was no time for any more drama, and a result that would have pleased both sides before the game had the feeling of a United victory and a Chelsea defeat. Yet is that the positive it sounds? There was a time when Old Trafford would have been disappointed at two home points dropped in this fixture. Now it provokes a fiesta.
The turning points of the match? Chelsea will cite Ivanovic’s first booking and the spurned penalty appeal, although neither come with a guarantee. For the first, Ivanovic certainly seemed to hand off Di Maria, but the United man was trying to do the same to him. It is hardly Ivanovic’s fault that he won this particular trial of strength and, even if Dowd considered it worthy of a foul, it surely wasn’t a booking. Maybe, though, Ivanovic talked his way into trouble with his protests. If so, he was foolish.
As for the penalty that wasn’t, Dowd merits a small degree of sympathy. Closer inspection suggests Marcos Rojo had John Terry by the neck, and Chris Smalling was doing a similar job on Ivanovic as Cesc Fabregas’s first-half corner came in. But there is so much grappling in the box these days that the referee possibly viewed it as a fair fight, with the entire quartet offending. When Gary Neville says United got away with one, however, it is worth considering that Chelsea had a case.
The real victim here, though: Chelsea’s third-choice striker. Without Manchester United’s equaliser and Ivanovic’s red, the headlines would have belonged to Didier Drogba, as Chelsea’s match-winner. Life in the old Drog yet. Who would have thought it?
Rejoining in the summer, Drogba was considered to be on very much a sentimental journey under Mourinho. We should have known Chelsea’s manager does not do sentiment, even in mellowed middle age. Shorn of Diego Costa with a virus and his understudy Loic Remy, injured against Maribor, Mourinho sent Drogba into the fray, kept him there for 90 minutes, and watched in quiet vindication as he all but won the match.
One mighty leap in the 53rd minute took him above Manchester United’s puny defence and should have given Chelsea a six-point lead over their rivals. What has he got to offer? A muscular presence and eye for the main chance that may never be dulled by the years. Drogba is 36. He could be 86, and you would still fancy him to outjump Rafael from a Fabregas corner, which is what happened.
Quite why Van Gaal chose his right back to go against Drogba from a dead ball, who can say?
It was a mismatch of fantastic proportions. David versus Goliath, except some prankster has taken David’s sling shots and replaced them with marshmallows.
Seconds earlier, Drogba had signalled the spark that remains, playing a delightful one-two to send Eden Hazard sprinting beyond United’s defence, only for a fabulous David de Gea save to keep him out. It was from this corner that Chelsea scored. De Gea deserved more; United didn’t.
Fabregas whipped it, Drogba got the glancing header, Van Persie could not do enough to stop its progress to goal. Mourinho 1 Van Gaal 0. No, of course he doesn’t do sentiment. Leading his mentor by a single goal, Mourinho then tried to shut up shop, introducing an increasing number of defence-minded players as the minutes leaked away.
Fools will say Chelsea paid the price for being negative. Only an numbskull goes gung-ho leading by a goal at Old Trafford with 15 minutes remaining, though.
Can United build on this? Van Gaal will hope so. He will be buoyed, too, by the first-half performance of Adnan Januzaj, who was at the centre of most of United’s best work.
In the 23rd minute, he threaded a lovely pass through to Van Persie, whose shot was smothered by Courtois, one on one. At the other end, Drogba forced an equally fine save from De Gea, with his legs. Honours even? Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, you know. Either way, it’s a start.
The United defender clearly brought down his Chelsea counterpart as the ball flashed across goal, with his arms around the Serb's neck
They got away with it. A scramble from a questionable free-kick in the fourth minute of injury time, lashed in by Robin van Persie. A red card for Branislav Ivanovic that most certainly wasn’t, and a rejected Chelsea penalty claim that gets more plausible with each viewing.
This wasn’t United at their best, but perhaps their most fortunate. Jose Mourinho had too much respect for his mentor, Louis van Gaal, to make his displeasure public when they came together on the sidelines. His face as the goal went in said it all, though. He screwed up his features as if encountering a bad smell. It was the expression of a man who thought he was robbed. Probably, he was.
Not hugely. This wasn’t grand larceny. Chelsea were not many goals better than United, they did not thrash them, or put them away. But a 1-0 win would have been about fair. Chelsea were better organised, stronger defensively, executed their game plan, and shaded the action.
To United’s credit, however, they did not give up, displaying the spirit that saw them through at West Bromwich Albion last Monday, and they deserve praise for that. It says much about their development, though, that this point at home was celebrated like a far greater affair, the United players forming a pyramid of jubilation on Van Persie as Chelsea despaired. Ivanovic, by now down the tunnel, will have known what had happened by the cacophony. The sense of injustice would have been quite raw.
Would Chelsea have hung on with 11? We can never know. The fact is, it never helps to defend with 10, and Ivanovic is a significant presence during set-pieces at either end. Perhaps Chelsea lost a little concentration, too, when Phil Dowd issued his seventh yellow card to a blue shirt. It did not seem a particularly dirty game, either.
To make one thing clear: Angel di Maria did not dive to win the foul. Ivanovic clipped his heel on the run, and he tripped. He did not cheat. It did not look intentional, but there was contact and that makes it a free-kick. Intent does not come into this. Even if Ivanovic merely mis-stepped the onus is on him not to be clumsy. So United’s drink in the last-chance saloon was at least deserved.
The booking, less so. There are too many dirty, dangerous challenges going unpunished in the English game for this to be yellow-card material. So Chelsea should have had the full complement on the pitch when Di Maria’s free-kick came in. Whether that would have made the difference, who knows?
As it was, United’s best player on the day, Marouane Fellaini, won the header, Thibaut Courtois made the save, and the ball fell to Van Persie, who buried ferociously it on instinct alone. There was no time for any more drama, and a result that would have pleased both sides before the game had the feeling of a United victory and a Chelsea defeat. Yet is that the positive it sounds? There was a time when Old Trafford would have been disappointed at two home points dropped in this fixture. Now it provokes a fiesta.
The turning points of the match? Chelsea will cite Ivanovic’s first booking and the spurned penalty appeal, although neither come with a guarantee. For the first, Ivanovic certainly seemed to hand off Di Maria, but the United man was trying to do the same to him. It is hardly Ivanovic’s fault that he won this particular trial of strength and, even if Dowd considered it worthy of a foul, it surely wasn’t a booking. Maybe, though, Ivanovic talked his way into trouble with his protests. If so, he was foolish.
As for the penalty that wasn’t, Dowd merits a small degree of sympathy. Closer inspection suggests Marcos Rojo had John Terry by the neck, and Chris Smalling was doing a similar job on Ivanovic as Cesc Fabregas’s first-half corner came in. But there is so much grappling in the box these days that the referee possibly viewed it as a fair fight, with the entire quartet offending. When Gary Neville says United got away with one, however, it is worth considering that Chelsea had a case.
The real victim here, though: Chelsea’s third-choice striker. Without Manchester United’s equaliser and Ivanovic’s red, the headlines would have belonged to Didier Drogba, as Chelsea’s match-winner. Life in the old Drog yet. Who would have thought it?
Rejoining in the summer, Drogba was considered to be on very much a sentimental journey under Mourinho. We should have known Chelsea’s manager does not do sentiment, even in mellowed middle age. Shorn of Diego Costa with a virus and his understudy Loic Remy, injured against Maribor, Mourinho sent Drogba into the fray, kept him there for 90 minutes, and watched in quiet vindication as he all but won the match.
One mighty leap in the 53rd minute took him above Manchester United’s puny defence and should have given Chelsea a six-point lead over their rivals. What has he got to offer? A muscular presence and eye for the main chance that may never be dulled by the years. Drogba is 36. He could be 86, and you would still fancy him to outjump Rafael from a Fabregas corner, which is what happened.
Quite why Van Gaal chose his right back to go against Drogba from a dead ball, who can say?
It was a mismatch of fantastic proportions. David versus Goliath, except some prankster has taken David’s sling shots and replaced them with marshmallows.
Seconds earlier, Drogba had signalled the spark that remains, playing a delightful one-two to send Eden Hazard sprinting beyond United’s defence, only for a fabulous David de Gea save to keep him out. It was from this corner that Chelsea scored. De Gea deserved more; United didn’t.
Fabregas whipped it, Drogba got the glancing header, Van Persie could not do enough to stop its progress to goal. Mourinho 1 Van Gaal 0. No, of course he doesn’t do sentiment. Leading his mentor by a single goal, Mourinho then tried to shut up shop, introducing an increasing number of defence-minded players as the minutes leaked away.
Fools will say Chelsea paid the price for being negative. Only an numbskull goes gung-ho leading by a goal at Old Trafford with 15 minutes remaining, though.
Can United build on this? Van Gaal will hope so. He will be buoyed, too, by the first-half performance of Adnan Januzaj, who was at the centre of most of United’s best work.
In the 23rd minute, he threaded a lovely pass through to Van Persie, whose shot was smothered by Courtois, one on one. At the other end, Drogba forced an equally fine save from De Gea, with his legs. Honours even? Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, you know. Either way, it’s a start.
The United defender clearly brought down his Chelsea counterpart as the ball flashed across goal, with his arms around the Serb's neck
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