That the EPL match between Manchester United and Chelsea did not have a tennis-like scoreline is a surprise. That Manchester United won the game is no surprise given the form that they have shown at the top though.
Manchester United continued to remain at the top of the points table after they defeated Chelsea 3-1 in an exciting game, full of goals and missed chances. They have now won five games in as many played, while Chelsea have three wins and a draw from their five encounters.
Sir Alex Ferguson began with an inexperienced defence against the third-placed Blues, by getting in Phil Jones, Johnny Evans and Chris Smalling to join skipper Patrice Evra. Darren Fletcher also made it to the starting line-up after being out of the game for a month.
On the other hand, Andre Villas-Boas continued to play Fernando Torres as a striker, and he would go on to exasperate the Chelsea fans much more than he ever had since his time at the league. He joined Spaniard Juan Mata, in the front. Daniel Sturridge was also continued after he did a good job against Sunderland last week and that meant that Nicolas Anelka needed to be benched.
Chelsea started aggressively at Old Trafford with their run-ins deep into the Manchester United half, but it was Smalling who headed the ball in from an Ashley Young free kick to put the home side one up.
If the first goal was good, the second was a beauty, with Nani getting his first of the match as well, selling Petr Cech a dummy. With Manchester United 2-0 up in the 37th minute, things were looking rather bleak for the visitors, but they were to get worse.
Rooney, who had scored in each of the previous four games going into this encounter, got an easy chance to score for the fifth time this season. A Jones’ pass saw him easily convert the chance into a goal to put Manchester United 3-0 ahead.
The strangeness of the game began with Chelsea got one back through Fernando Torres, who scored only his second goal ever for his side, just before the break. Manchester United went into changeover 3-1 ahead.
One would have thought that given that this was also the scoreline at the end of the game, things did not move at an equally frenetic pace. That was far from the truth as possible, because both sides missed a plethora of chances that were created in the game.
Nani was brought down in the box and Rooney took the ensuing penalty. He slipped and tipped the ball over the bar, and failed to add to his ten goals this season. Later, he would miss two more chances, hitting the side bar on one occasion and then failing to score off another easy pass to Berbatov.
Chelsea blew up a couple as well, including one where Torres had a chance to score without the goal-keeper in between him and the goal and drilled it wide.
MANCHESTER UNITED: de Gea, Smalling (Valencia 62nd), Jones, Evans, Evra, Nani, Fletcher, Anderson (Carrick 62nd), Young, Rooney, Hernandez (Berbatov 79th)
CHELSEA: Cech, Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Cole, Ramires, Meireles ( Obi-Mikel 79th), Lampard (Anelka 46th), Sturridge (Lukaku 68th), Torres, Mata.