For decades, Chelsea and Manchester United was one of the best and most pivotal matches in a Premier League season. Now it’s a comedy of errors and, for British football, that is a true shame.
Chelsea didn’t deserve to win and Manchester United didn’t either. If possible, both sides should have been awarded zero points, if only just because children shouldn’t learn that mediocrity like this is awarded with anything, nor should they think it’s acceptable. Chelsea appear to be stumbling into a Champions League place slowly and surely, but it has very little to do with them.
Arsenal are continuing to show that Unai Emery’s job is one of the hardest in the Premier League. Shaking years of Wengerian rust off that squad and their mentality is going to be difficult. Chelsea were lucky that Manchester United are about as bad as them and that Tottenham are almost comically distracted by the Champions League.
With a great opportunity against a weak Manchester United team Chelsea could have moved into third. Manchester United are a wounded animal and they were there for the taking. Instead, the Blues put in the sort of confused and eleven-separate-players performance that has come to define the club in recent years.
This is where things are so frustrating with Maurizio Sarri’s reign. For a man whose promise was the idea of playing a united style of attacking football things have never been this bad. Most of the players are having trouble getting out of first, let alone second, gear. Sarri made everything worse by choosing the wrong team yet again.
Gonzalo Higuain is a smart footballer. He could someday be a coach and mentor a younger striker. But he just isn’t making it work in the Premier League and anybody can see that. Frustratingly, Olivier Giroud has been excellent in most of the games he’s had this season, but Sarri has not given him a fair chance.
The Giroud problem is particularly striking because simply with him leading the line Chelsea play much better football. His positional play and interplay with Eden Hazard and whoever is on the right is always excellent. He helps the team maintain position in the attacking third. Higuain doesn’t do any of this, and it makes the rest of the game harder for Chelsea to get anything out of.
Sarri continuously picks the wrong sides and compounds Chelsea’s already length list of problems. That, more than anything else, is why they are in the position they are on the table. Every single time Chelsea are taking a step forward Sarri pushes them back again.
The next issue, though, is that this isn’t something that might be possible to solve simply by firing him. Without a doubt, Chelsea’s biggest issue is the character of the team. It’s why they never win close games, concede easy goals early and can’t close games out. The character of the side has been ruined by Chelsea’s habit of firing managers. Each and every player has no interest in learning what the manager thinks or trying to please them because they’ll be gone within 10 months anyway.
A characterless, leaderless team with a manager who still doesn’t know his best XI. That’s why Chelsea are such a shame.