When it mattered, Chelsea beat United 3-1 (July 20, 2019). In season 2020, United finished 33 points behind Liverpool.
Unlike United, Chelsea has moved measurably further forward. In the C.L., Chelsea has 13 points and United have 9 points.
For an eighth consecutive season, United's Achilles heel continues to be their characterless and injury-prone players, poor manager and massive inconsistency.
My point is that only the present matters and that fact do not lie.
I’ll address your points one by one.
1) The FA Cup semi wasn’t the only United-Chelsea game that mattered last season. Ludicrous to say that. Our two wins in the league helped us finish above them, thus they definitely weren’t inconsequential. I’ll give you the Carabao Cup win.
2) Chelsea finished 33 points behind Liverpool too.
3) Yes, they’ve certainly progressed further than us. However, Ole wasn’t helped by the Glazers not obtaining his targets while Roman backed Lampard with all his targets and more. Can’t blame Ole too much for that. It’s a well known fact that if a manager has an owner who cares above him, he has an advantage.
4) Using their CL points tally and comparing it to ours is a real mischievous way of finding a stick to beat Ole with. Chelsea’s pot 1 and 3 opponents are Sevilla (winners of the EL) and Krasnodar (who?), while ours are PSG (CL finalists) and Leipzig (CL semi-finalists). Enough said.
5) There are many avenues of which we can use to criticise our players, like the inconsistency factor as you said. However, calling them characterless is totally misguided. If you have no character, you don’t come back in 5 away PL games in a row, beat PSG away after being pegged back or obtain such a fantastic points total after lockdown, thus not bottling CL qualification.
6) Yes, the present does matter, but our league-topping points tally since Bruno’s arrival shows that it is going quite swimmingly.
In short, find the elusive consistency and imo, this team can challenge for the title. It’s a big ask of course.