Date: Sunday 28th
February 2021
Venue: Stamford Bridge
Kick-off: 16:30 GMT
After a successful night in the Champions League midweek, this afternoon’s
game sees us back at Stamford Bridge to take on Manchester United.
After the draw against
Southampton last weekend, we slipped to fifth, 2 points behind West Ham, United
meanwhile, are in second, 13 points off the league leaders at the start of the
day. United come into the game off the back of a 0-0 draw with Real Sociedad in
the Europa League on Thursday, although they had a 3-1 win over Newcastle in
the Premier League last weekend.
Chelsea haven’t had a win against Manchester
United in the Premier League since November 2017, so Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hasn’t experienced a defeat at Stamford Bridge as a
manager. United are also unbeaten
on the road in the league this season, with eight wins and four draws from 12
games. They’ll be
quite happy to give us the lion’s share of possession because they’ll know there’ll
be decisions chances against us, and they have players who can finish the
job for them.
As for Chelsea, we’ve improved defensively but the same improvements
haven’t happened in the final third, so whilst we can be frustrating to play,
we can also be pretty frustrating to watch. The draw against Southampton last time out in
the league, also showed our benevolent streak in defence hasn’t gone away altogether,
and Bruno Fernandes will expose any weakness there today.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into today’s
game, Thomas Tuchel says “Hopefully
we can win – this is what we go for. We know it’s a big challenge because of
their unbeaten away record. We know what we’re up against; a team that
can hurt you any second with individual quality, with speed. They are strong
away, they can defend very compact, they are very, very good in transition. It
will be a big challenge to defend all this. The implication is huge, of
course. If we get a win out of this game it’s huge for us. If they get a win it
will be huge for them, to put a difference between us.”
Manchester United
manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, meanwhile, says “Thomas has done really well
as it’s never easy coming into a season half way through. But hopefully we can
stop that run, that’s my job now. We know he has come in and it’s changed a
little bit at Chelsea and it’s going to be a great challenge for us. But we
have improved even though we’re still nowhere near where we want to be – higher
up the table and winning trophies. We just have to focus and tick one game off
at a time but the three games (away) are massive we’ve got Chelsea who are just
behind us and we’ve got City who are in front of us. We can’t let them run
further away if we have ambitions of catching them and we can’t give Chelsea
too much hope to catch us either.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Chelsea, Thiago Silva (thigh) remains out.
For Manchester United, Paul Pogba,
Phil Jones and Juan Mata are out, but Scott McTominay, Donny van de Beek and Edinson
Cavani could return.
TEAMS
CHELSEA (Possible
line-up): Mendy; Azpilicueta, Christensen, Rudiger; Hudson-Odoi;
Jorginho, Kovacic; Alonso; Mount, Giroud, Werner
MANCHESTER UNITED (Possible line-up): De Gea; Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof,
Maguire, Shaw; Fred, Matic; Rashford, Fernandes, Greenwood; Cavani
LAST SEASON
Chelsea 0-2 Manchester
United (17th February 2020)
CURRENT FORM (PL)
CHELSEA: DWWWWD
MANCHESTER UNITED: LDWDDW
OTHER STUFF
- Chelsea have only won two of the past 10 meetings in all competitions.
- Manchester United have won on their last three away trips to Stamford
Bridge in all competitions.
- Chelsea are unbeaten in nine matches in all competitions.
- Manchester United are unbeaten in 19 away league games.
- Chelsea have taken just one win in six games against current top-seven
clubs.
- Manchester United are unbeaten in seven games against current top-seven
clubs
- Manchester United have lost just once in 19 Premier League fixtures,
winning 12 and drawing six.
PREDICTION
BBC Sport: Chelsea 1-1 Manchester United
Sky Sports: Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United
Sportsmole: Chelsea 1-1 Manchester United
