Chelsea edge past Manchester United

And then there was one. With just http://www.officialsunsshop.com/authentic-2-eric-bledsoe-jersey.html over an hour gone at Stamford Bridge and Manchester United trailing 1-0 thanks to Álvaro Morata’s sublime second-half Authentic Dennis Smith Jr. Jersey header, José Mourinho leapt up out of his seat for perhaps the 30th time, quilted grey anorak billowing behind him, and waved Authentic Dennis Smith Jr. Jersey his arms in a gesture of trapped rage.

Mourinho’s exasperation was directed at Marouane Fellaini, who was standing too deep inside his own half to get a flick on to a David de Gea clearance. Fellaini rumbled a little mournfully into position. Two minutes later he was booked for trailing an elbow into Morata’s face. In the final moments, as United roused for a late grandstand attack like a rusted trawler being hoisted from the ocean floor, Fellaini trapped an Eric Bailly punt on his chest, brought it down with a roll of the shoulders and punted a bobbling shot that Thibaut Courtois palmed away.

It was United’s second and last shot on target. Three minutes later Antonio Conte could be seen capering along the touchline in triumph as Anthony Taylor blew his whistle. And that was pretty much that, on the day the music died for the Premier League title race. Victory for Chelsea leaves Manchester City eight points clear after 11 games and playing the kind of football that suggests such a lead is, if anything, a little kind to the rest of the field.

At which point there will, of course, be a temptation to pile in on Mourinho and United for failing to http://www.panthersofficialonlineshop.com/panthers+derek+anderson+jersey reach such early-season levels. The shots-on-target stats will be repeated ad nauseam (five in three games against Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea). Mourinho’s poor record against the better teams will be used as a switch with which to thrash at his second-placed team.

There are perhaps two things worth saying about this. First, the urge to assail Mourinho, to rehash the debate over whether high-grade defensive organisation also counts as football (it does), will probably overshadow Chelsea’s own part in this game.

This was a fine, driving performance from Conte’s team. The return of N’Golo Authentic Dennis Smith Jr. Jersey Kanté was key, allowing Tiémoué Bakayoko to play with vigour, if not much precision, further up the field. Above all Kanté’s presence freed up Cesc Fàbregas to provide a moment of calm in the middle of the fury around him, playing at times like the only grown-up on the pitch, with the craft and patience to find a little space, to pick a pass, to try to change the rhythm of the game rather than simply hurling himself into it headfirst.

In Fàbregas and Eden Hazard Chelsea had two players whose first thought is to find a pocket of space, to disrupt rather than reinforce the rigid defensive lines around them. Which was, it turned out, two more than United.

This leads on to the second thing worth saying about this game, and indeed this season, this red-shirted juggernaut. In the debrief there will be the usual focus on managerial personality, in particular the bad art of the José Mourinho soap opera. But the more interesting subject is perhaps United itself, a vast, tangled uncooperative entity and a genuinely strange club in its own way.

 

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