[bosnian_red]

Meh, Chelsea parked the bus and got lucky that Dean missed a clear foul on Falcao in the build up for their goal, we didn't take our chances. Full strength we would have won for sure IMO. Herrera at the end, definitely seen them given but no way was Dean giving that, he went in expecting Herrera to look for a pen and made his mind up before anything happened. Herrera was looking for it, but there was definitely contact and his ankle got caught between Cahill's legs. 50/50 for me.

Chelsea should be ashamed though, 30% possession at home? I always liked Mourinho and a win is a win, but come on, you're the elect champions, and have some excellent players. You don't need to park the bus in every game against big teams. Embarrassing.

 

[kouroux]

Chelsea to be the most boring and depressing champion in recent years.

 

[RetroStu]

You guys played pretty well considering injuries..more so in the first half. Just as I expected though. We only needed a draw and got the win just as we did vs Liverpool last season.

Playing a top team in great form is never easy, Jose has a bit of respect for United like that.

But please lets not start going on and on about how 'we' cant happy with that and how playing at home and being the champions elect etc, because its nonsense.

You have plenty of positives to take out of what was effectively a meaningless match anyway.

I fecking hate saying this but i agree with you there. Mourinho is a born winner and your fans will surely get over the negative (winning) football while celebrating the league title.

 

[Revan]

Completely as I expected.

We had the monopoly on the ball, but there never was any question on who's gonna win the game. I think it tells well the difference (on both class and ability) Mourinho and Van Gaal have.

 

[Skills]

Missed Carrick. Missed the Herrera/Mata/Valencia trio on the right. But it wasnt too bad all things considering.

 

[GDaly95]

I thought it was a really good performance. We deserved a lot more, definitely the better team, but I suppose you always leave Stamford Bridge feeling that way when Mou is in charge. They were rock solid, fair play to them.

Shaw was magnificent, Herrera was quality again, particularly in the first half (pathetic dive) and McNair did very well too.

Onwards and upwards, we can beat them next season, no doubt in my mind.

 

[the hea]

A good performance if you consider the players we had missing and with a bit more luck we could have taken at least a draw from this one.
Shaw, Herrera and McNair were the top performers for me.

 

[#07]

We didn't do enough to win the game, simple as. Chelsea did what we expect Chelsea to do: soak up pressure and counter. We didn't do enough to take them out of their comfort zone.

Very little speed or edge to our passing, we started ok but the tempo died once Chelsea took the lead. Shaw tried to give us some impetus in the second half but once he went off we were dead in the water. For the most part Di Maria, and particularly Januzaj, spent their time on the pitch running up blind alleys. Blackett was a weird sub, added nothing and kept making errors.

Credit where credit is due, Chelsea won. They won ugly but they won. We can speculate it may have been different had our team not been decimated by injuries, but Chelsea had their own injuries to cope with. We didn't test Courtois. We played in front of Chelsea, and rather than seek to make openings from distance for shots, we simply recycled the ball into safe areas lots and played into Mourinho's hands.

Disappointing.

 

[Walrus]

Chelsea were/are lucky that they have the best player in the league, who can create something out of nothing.
We dominated the match pretty much from start to finish. No big calls but I felt the ref showed a lot of double standards with the normal "pushing" sorts of fouls - Fellaini seemed to get penalised every time he contested the ball, whilst their players were allowed to be as physical as they wanted.

Still, the ref isnt to blame for the result. We should have played Rooney up front and found someone else to go in midfield. Falcao offered absolutely nothing, which was exactly what I expected.

Shaw and McNair did extremely well, although overall our defence looked a bit shakier than it has done - that is to be expected with the amount of changes in the team coming into this game.

We keep possession very well, but we lacked a cutting edge. Falcao contributed to this lack of incisiveness, but I feel that when teams put someone on Fellaini to man mark him, a lot of our attacking threat seems to fade. Chelsea basically crippled their entire team by sticking Zouma in midfield (hence why we dominated), but it meant that we didnt create (m)any clear-cut chances.

Herrera did a job in DM but as with Rooney, we lost a lot by not having him in his normal position further up the pitch.

All in all the performance was good, although it is incredibly disappointing to lose that way, especially with Mourinhos obvious timewasting and general gamesmanship. Still cant believe Falcao played, and lasted 90 minutes though.

 

[sullydnl]

We were fine but Chelsea did what they had to do. Everton game is more important in a lot of ways.

 

[charleysurf]

Mourinho is the best manager in the world.

It will be very hard to beat him, even with another 200 million in transfers.

Too many mistakes from LVG. He played into Mourinho's hands. We played exactly the way Mourinho expected us to.

Plus: Falcao should have never played. Our subs were silly.

Are you fecking serious? United are 200m in transfers behind this Chelsea team? Did you even watch the game? Bloody hell that's vomit inducing crap.

 

[pjaya]

Would be one depressed fan. Thank feck Charlton has a good sense.

Frankly I don't mind being one depresse fan if we win titles playing like that

 

[El Zoido]

It's easy to see why Chelsea are hated, their football is awful. It's all about resolute defending, solidarity, and having a star player produce a moment of magic. You have to respect it but it's pretty depressing.

That said, their goal shouldn't have stood as Falcao was fouled in the buildup. We were good for a draw but got worse after the subs.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Happy enough that we've gone away to the team likely to win the title and absolutely dominated them start to finish and been unlucky to lose without having to result to crying, harassing the referee, playacting, cheating, diving etc.

 

[hbgreg]

Not an unforgivable result, you know these small teams put 2 rows of four and try to counter. LvG always complains about these small teams because they don't play football. We were very good on the day and we'll probably pick up at least 13 from the next 15. I think LvG (despite how much I love him) should of changed the system knowing what will happen, Di Maria to add more penetration on much earlier.

 

[Mister_Stubbs]

That defeat is hard to take because we played so well, we dominated possession but final ball was lacking. Chelsea offered nothing all game.

 

[RetroStu]

Would be one depressed fan. Thank feck Charlton has a good sense.

Do you not want Utd challenging and winning titles/trophies every year?

 

[Kraftwerker]

Urgh.

By far the better team despite being cobbled together. A foul/defensive error cost us the game.

 

[Snow]

United played well. Chelsea played better. They set up to defend and punish mistakes and that's what they did. Drogba and Fabregas were great at limiting the passing to our midfielders. Zouma was put on to stop Fellaini and he did that. Azpilicueta was told to make marking Mata a priority of keeping himself in position and he did that excellently. United didn't make the most of Mata cutting in and Azpilicueta following. Could see Mata frantically pointing at the space but rarely the Valencia run came and neither did the pass into space.

For me, every United player played okay. Shaw stood out a bit. At times it was like him and McNair were the least afraid of bringing the ball up in the second half. After the substitutions things got a bit better but as soon as Shaw came off for Blackett that stopped. Di Maria looked sharp, Falcao was playing well and Ivanovic looked like the weak link for a while. Too bad Shaw couldn't play longer.

Rooney should have scored early before Chelsea had the time to settle. Him missing that shot put them into gear and they performed Mourinho's task as well as asked and could have scored more than 1. United also could have leveled. A close game. Disappointing to lose but I really expected too with the way the game was set up.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Meh, Chelsea parked the bus and got lucky that Dean missed a clear foul on Falcao in the build up for their goal, we didn't take our chances. Full strength we would have won for sure IMO. Herrera at the end, definitely seen them given but no way was Dean giving that, he went in expecting Herrera to look for a pen and made his mind up before anything happened. Herrera was looking for it, but there was definitely contact and his ankle got caught between Cahill's legs. 50/50 for me.

Chelsea should be ashamed though, 30% possession at home? I always liked Mourinho and a win is a win, but come on, you're the elect champions, and have some excellent players. You don't need to park the bus in every game against big teams. Embarrassing.

Argh. Again, winning football matches isn't embarrassing.

 

[duffer]

Plus: Falcao should have never played. Our subs were silly.

What's happened to Wilson? I know RVP was not really fit enough to play but a nippy player like WIlson would have troubled Terry and Cahill more than Falcao.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Another dominant performance. Could've created more tbf.

Slightly dodgy goal from Chelsea but no complaints. They deserve the league this year. Best side by a country mile.

We need to carry on like we are and secure a top 4 spot.

Good dive at the end. And great call from the ref.

 

[Ixion]

Played alright, injuries didn't help really. Without Blind and Carrick playing and Rooney not up top we won't create as many chances. Their goal was a foul. Oh well.

 

[JonDahl]

Can't fecking stand Chelsea. feck their shithouse tactics, and the fecking despicable, diving, cheating players littered throughout their team. They never deserved to win that.

 

[LS17]

We did well. Yeah we lost but we've gone to Chelsea and been the better side. It makes me excited for next year. These past few months have been the most enjoyable in a long time, it's exciting to watch us play and I still think we'll finish the season very strongly still.

 

[Mojo_]

The better team lost. Not too worried about our overall position at the end of the season, plenty of what ifs but the players called up today did well. Move on to Everton.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

I don't really get the chelsea praise. Would we praise our boys if we had 30% of the ball at home after paying a bunch of money for a ticket? If we played smalling in CM and camped on the box. Moyes got slaughtered for playing far more attacking football than chelsea did today, away from home

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Was there actually any football played in stoppage time? It seemed like 4 minutes of substitutions, Hazard on the ground and Drogba getting outmuscled by players half his size, taking an age to take a free kick.

Falcao is a nothing player. Blackett is muck. Awful substitution.

We played well. Shame about getting 4 injuries at once, which was a ridiculous turn of luck going into our hardest game of the season. I think we would have won with Carrick. We just lacked a bit of composure, and we played with 10 men with Falcao up top.

 

[Manny]

Good performance.

But I think us chasing a result caused things to fall apart in the second half. The philosophy flew out the window after subs and it turned into a mess.

 

[Ainu]

By the time my post had been written half a dozen people had already done what I was expecting them to do

This is a Man United forum and we've just lost to your team of thundercunts. If you don't want to see that, don't enter the fecking post match thread.

 

[Revan]

You can talk about possession and playing all the football you want, we were tactically out done.

Didn't do enough to make them move and drag them out of positions.

Completely agree.

Mourinho played to his plan and it succedded. Van Gaal played to its plan and it failed.

Anti-football my arse. Defending is as important as attacking. One of the best sides in football I have ever seen won their league (which at that time was far better than the current EPL) with only 34 goals scored.

 

[CLARiiON]

Chelsea, will be fighting for 3rd place in Spain. They are lucky that all other teams in EPL are either weak, rebuilding or having bad phase. I have seen Chelsea a few times this season, I don't think they can compete with the best in Spain. At best they will do what other small teams do, park the bus.

 

[Mystry]

Tight game, they took their chance, we had a couple that probably should have scored, did well under the circumstances.

If we were in the title race I'd be feeling a lot more sour after that but I kinda half expected a loss at Stamford bridge when the injuries were announced. Our ability to dominate the ball is great and we still managed to create some openings so it wasn't all just for the sake of it.

Think we really missed Herrera higher up the pitch, especially with Chelsea defending so deep, to link up with Mata. Had Blind been fit I would gave backed us to score, never mind Carrick.

Couple of the subs were weird though. If he was planning on taking Shaw off wouldn't Young have been better off staying on the pitch and playing LB. And while I can kinda see the thinking behind the Januzaj sub, he's played so little that it was very unlikely going to work.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Oh and falcao should not be signed permanently.

Yeah no shit. Ray Charles can see that.

 

[DevilRed]

Taught a footballing lesson today. Felt we might have been a bit unlucky but really we couldn't create anything. I think mourinho knew this when he saw that we needed to play Rooney and Herrera etc. out of position.

Might have been a different story with Carrick in the midfield, Rooney up top and Herrera closer to Mata.

I thought we had a lot of possession but just really couldn't bother them too much. Their backline was immense today and hazard just needed that one chance to win it for them. Reminds me of when we had Ronaldo and one of our title winning seasons we just kept winning 1-0.

Nothing to be ashamed of. Im sure we will make the necessary signings in the summer to strengthen the team. We've already got a lot of top class talent on board. I thought Luke Shaw was tremendous today. Absolutely amazing little player who has bags of pace.

Herrera was overall very good but you can tell he isn't a holding midfielder because he is mistake prone in his passing sometimes. Needs to play further up the pitch. Thought Rooney was subpar again. No real spark or pace shown from him. A stark difference in ability between him and hazard.

Smalling and Mcnair did fantastic overall. Valencia fell asleep for the goal but other than that was ok. Even Di Maria came on and tried to create a bit more for us. Almost did. I think he might deserve a start the next match but would it be at the expense of Young or Mata?

 

[Cantonaaa!]

Definite penalty in the last seconds not given.

Chelsea aren't great.

Blatant penalty not given.

No penalty for me. Stuck his foot in there on purpose.

 

[Señor]

Meh, no one expected a win and with our recent set of results, we've afforded ourselves a defeat here. Plus we had a tonne of injuries and yet we pretty much matched them toe to toe with a weakened team.

It also showed us that we're lacking quality in depth, bringing on Blackett for example who is not United quality, as well as reminding us that we need to do a fair bit of business in the summer before we can challenge for the title and CL.

 

[Mrs Smoker]

Do you not want Utd challenging and winning titles/trophies every year?

We'll challenge for and win titles soon enough. I can wait.

 

[ItsEssexRob]

I fecking hate saying this but i agree with you there. Mourinho is a born winner and your fans will surely get over the negative (winning) football while celebrating the league title.

Of course and I doubt United 08/09 celebrated any less because of how they played at times that season.

To be fair though some of you answer your own questions. When this style of football clearly winds you up, what you get is teams coming into games vs us bullish and overconfident.

Instead of the way we play its the result because it winds the ' but we played so much better' people up.

Besides we played strongly today, it wasnt terrible.

What did you want us to do what City and Liverpool did, play openly and get smashed.. I told you we werent that stupid.

 

[JTW95]

Gotta give credit to Zouma. He did a great job on Fellaini. It was like we were playing with 10 men... Well 9, Falcao was also on the pitch.