. . .BUT MORATA MASTERS JOSE
No handshake after Bridge battle
FOR Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, this is beginning to feel less like a football season and more an exercise in problem management.
Manchester United, it is worth pointing out, are second in the Premier League. Chelsea, after this thoroughly deserved win, are up to fourth and just a point behind.
But the feeling at these clubs is not one of great optimism. Issues swirl around both like smoke from a bonfire, whatever the results on the field.
United have problems with their style, especially away from Old Trafford. On Mourinho’s 15-month watch, United have scored a single goal away against one of the traditional top-six clubs.
After two defeats in three Premier League games, United are now eight points behind Manchester City and maybe we are finally seeing evidence of the limitations that seemed apparent at the end of the summer transfer window. Better — quite good, in fact — but maybe not quite good enough yet.
Yesterday Mourinho was left to suggest that things will improve once injured players return. This from a manager who claims never to use injuries as an excuse.
As for Chelsea, Conte continues to swim against a tide that seems destined, at some stage, to wash him out of the door at Stamford Bridge. This was an emotional, tense victory for the Italian, one earned by a towering header from Alvaro Morata and celebrated with such intensity at full time that Conte decided he didn’t have time to shake hands with Mourinho. That was a mistake.
Afterwards talk turned almost immediately from victory to his omission of the Brazilian David Luiz. With Conte dissatisfied with Luiz’s training performances, the Chelsea manager decided to proceed without him for this game and has suggested this stance will not change any time soon.
Victory here enabled him to get away with that. Today it looks brave. But what happens when Conte leaves one of his big names out and his team lose?
That is when the problems will begin. At Chelsea, managers who take on players — especially those favoured by the owner Roman Abramovich — tend to run into difficulties very soon.
Mourinho knows this better than anyone. So this was the context within which this game was played. If matches that do not involve
rampant City already feel as though they will only influence the order of the runners-up prizes, this one was always unlikely to provide conclusive proof of the direction in which Chelsea or United are travelling.
From United we certainly didn’t see anything that surprised us. Mourinho’s team were competitive and drilled and were never going to be easy to beat. But they were lacking in potency when they had the ball.
Centre forward Romelu Lukaku has now not scored since the end of September, for example, and United continue to look utterly incapable of dictating play against good sides.
Only after Chelsea scored 10 minutes into the second half did United really come alive, Mourinho throwing on big Belgian Marouane Fellaini.
Prior to that, Mourinho’s team had been in the game but never in charge of it. Chelsea were better from the get-go and the way they responded to defeat in Rome in the Champions League was very impressive. The home team’s two best players were Morata and Eden Hazard.
No surprise there. Morata’s play with back to goal was terrific and he was prepared to run the channels, too. It was hard not to compare that to Lukaku’s rather more laboured efforts at the other end.
United survived a Phil Jones volley into his own net early on — Morata was judged to have fouled him — and escaped again when the unconvincing Tiemoue Bakayoko spooned a good chance wide from 12 yards.
United goalkeeper David de Gea then beat out a waspish Hazard shot with Cesc Fabregas heading the rebound into the side-netting.
At this stage all that United had to show for their occasional journeys to the other end of the field was a header over from Marcus Rashford and a shot from 18 yards by Lukaku that Thibaut Courtois saved low to his right.
Chelsea never wore the look of certain winners but a blue victory always seemed the most likely outcome. Hazard may have done better than shoot at the keeper early in the second half but when Cesar Azpilicueta dropped a cross on Morata’s head soon after, the way he directed the ball back across De Gea and into the top corner was sublime.
It was a goal fit to win a big match. United pressed hard with Fellaini working Courtois and then appealing for a penalty as he grappled with Gary Cahill.
Conte should have gone to Mourinho to shake hands afterwards, no matter the bad blood between them. But as the dust settled later, that was not even the main post-match issue. That, in itself, spoke volumes.