Reds alert: Paul Pogba consoles N’golo Kante after Manchester United beat Chelsea to clinch a place in the last eight of the FA Cup
United storm Chelsea to leave Blues boss Sarri on brink MARTIN SAMUEL
THE scoreline told the story: these are two clubs going in very different directions now. Whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ends up a permanent fixture at Manchester United, he has done what he was employed to do in December. He has turned this ship around. United are in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup — where they will face Wolves — the top four in the Premier League and on course to be in the Champions League next season.
They will do this, it seems, at the expense of Chelsea — a club that has lost its way under Maurizio Sarri, and that United deservedly dumped out of the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge, just as they have evicted them from the Champions League places.
A jubilant Solskjaer said: ‘The performance tonight was fantastic. Our tactics worked. We asked our midfielders to press higher and get into the box and it worked. The defending in the second half was fantastic.
‘Chelsea are a good team, they have their way of playing, but Juan Mata did a fantastic job on Jorginho and we were absolutely perfect defensively. We kept a clean sheet.
‘It is a massive result. We had criticism after the Paris Saint-Germain game and everyone did what we asked them tonight.’
Chelsea will contest the Carabao Cup final with Manchester City on Sunday, but fans will travel in hope more than expectation, and not even much of that with City winning their most recent meeting 6-0.
It was never going to be that against the red half of Manchester, but United were comfortable, two goals clear at half-time, and contained Chelsea beyond that.
‘We played confused football in the second half but in the first half we played well,’ said Sarri, who was jeered by his own supporters.
‘I’m worried about the result but not about the fans’ reaction because I understand the situation. I can understand our fans because the result wasn’t really good and we are out of the FA Cup.
‘I was really worried when I was in League Two in Italy. Not now.’
United were better and appear liberated by Solskjaer as much as Chelsea seem shackled by Sarri.
The Italian’s second-half substitutions — the inevitable Ross Barkley-Mateo Kovacic switch, plus full-back Davide Zappacosta for Cesar Azpilicueta — bought equal parts mockery and disdain, with Callum Hudson-Odoi again imprisoned on the bench.
Sarri did not even put N’Golo Kante, a defensive midfielder supreme, on Paul Pogba, despite seeing the Marquinhos effect when Paris Saint-Germain won 2-0 in the Champions League at Old Trafford last week.
The upshot? A goal and an assist for the player who will run the game if he is allowed.
Solskjaer has always maintained that there will be a setback in his United tenure and the key is how his players react to it. Defeat by PSG was that setback. Here was the answer: magnificently.
The opening 45 minutes was the most eloquent riposte to any idea the Solskjaer regime might have been found out or shallowly constructed on little more than good cheer.
Even missing Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard through injury, United were superior and looked the greater danger going forward.
One would have thought the idea that Solskjaer lacked the tactical smarts at the top level had been put to bed by now, but just in case there were any doubters after the visit of PSG, here was another line-up shot through with intelligence.
As at Arsenal in the previous round, he deployed Romelu Lukaku forward on one flank to good effect, while Marcus Rashford patrolled the other.
In the middle, Mata served in Lingard’s withdrawn role, while Pogba and Ander Herrera ensured there was plenty of activity in the areas where Jorginho likes to operate, which is essential when playing Chelsea.
Jorginho did play one lovely ball that was squandered by Gonzalo Higuain but, that aside, Chelsea chances in the first half were limited to shots from range, repelled by Sergio Romero, and a Higuain header at the very least should have been on target.
In the 11th minute, Romero saved an excellent free-kick from David Luiz only for the rebound to fall to Pedro. He struck it on the volley but the keeper proved himself equal to that, too.
Hazard played a onetwo with Kovacic before curling a shot wide a minute later and, after United had gone a goal up, Chelsea almost found a fortunate route back into the game when a Pedro cross took a slight deflection and almost turned into a perfect lob.
So a bit of luck, a little judgment and not much else from Chelsea. United, by contrast, were always a threat.
From the second minute when Pogba found Mata, eventually involving Lukaku whose cross was cut out by Luiz with Rashford lurking, it was plain United had a strategy for getting in behind Chelsea from wide positions.
Herrera made Chelsea keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga work to save his shot from 25 yards soon after, and the pressure began to show when Arrizabalaga made a hash of a back pass from Azpilicueta, almost letting in Rashford.
From their next attack, however, United took the lead.
After a quiet half hour, Pogba was finally given the room to pick out a pass from out wide and Chelsea paid a heavy price. His cross was a beauty and Herrera lost Marcos Alonso to guide a header into the corner.
Worse followed seconds before half-time. This time, it was a Rashford cross and Pogba, still without a shadow, who stole between Antonio Rudiger and Azpilicueta to convert United’s second header of the night.
That was the 15th goal Pogba has been involved in, either as scorer or the player credited with the assist, since Solskjaer took over as manager.
Only one player can better that record in that time, Son Huengmin, with 16 involvements for Tottenham — and he is being discussed as a potential Footballer of the Year.