This match would be the first for Chelsea under the new management of Avram Grant, due to José Mourinho leaving the club during the week. Grant had his work cut out for him as his first game was against the Champions; Manchester United. Neither team was in full form coming into the game, but it certainly had all the hallmarks of a classic.
Manchester started the game very well with Rooney forcing Petr Cech to make a brilliant save only a few minutes into the game. But Chelsea soon found their feet and started to accumulate some possession. The game was fairly cagey with few opportunities for either side, when out of the blue referee, Mike Dean, produced an extremely harsh straight red card for Mikel due to a heavy challenge on Evra. It seemed that Chelsea realized that the most they could hope for would be 1 point.
United used their man advantage to dominate the possession for the rest of the first half. There were wild challenges flying in all over the place as the tension mounted. Just before the half time whistle Giggs played a driven cross into the box, which Carlos Tevez bravely nodded past Cech.
Right from the start of the second half Chelsea looked fairly lifeless, despite the several attacking substations that they made. United continued to dominate the possession for the rest of the game, and Van De Sar barely had anything to do.
In the last few minutes of the game Saha went down pretty easily in the box under a clumsy tackle from Ben Haim. The referee generously gave the penalty to United, possibly to make up for the numerous legitimate United penalty calls that he had denied. Saha sent Cech the wrong way as he secured a 2-0 victory for Manchester United.
Chelsea have a lot of work to do; a task which will be made that much more difficult without Mourinho.
This match would be the first for Chelsea under the new management of Avram Grant, due to José Mourinho leaving the club during the week. Grant had his work cut out for him as his first game was against the Champions; Manchester United. Neither team was in full form coming into the game, but it certainly had all the hallmarks of a classic.