Chelsea vs Manchester United was a Champions League final 16 years ago. Here, in April 2024, the horizons of both have dimmed but two clubs with such heritage will invariably put on a match worth watching, even if the quality is not what it used to be.
And tonight’s edition only took four minutes to get going, with Conor Gallagher giving Chelsea the lead with a well-taken strike after a deflection fell to him inside United’s penalty box. Did this feel like the sort of game where one goal would be enough? No not really, and by half-time it was level, Erik ten Hag’s team coming from behind with two goals in five minutes after Cole Palmer’s seventh penalty of the season had put Chelsea 2-0 up. A dangerous lead? Utterly perilous in this game.
It didn’t really seem possible but the second half began in an even more open fashion with the two sides exchanging attacks like basketball teams. The — inevitable — next goal came after 67 minutes as Alejandro Garnacho converted a delightful pass from Antony. That looked like being the end of the scoring before a second Palmer penalty in added time levelled it once more.
Match over? Of course not. Palmer completed his hat-trick in the 101st minute to seal a dramatic win for Chelsea.
The final shot count of 28 for Chelsea and 19 for United was testament to a game that will live long in the memory, if not the ‘How to defend’ textbooks.
Here, our writers break down some of the night’s key talking points.
Did Antony justify his selection?
Even though Marcus Rashford is not having his best season by any stretch of the imagination, it always seems to be a seminal moment when Ten Hag decides to leave him out of the starting XI.
Rashford had scored three goals in his last five appearances in all competitions, while Antony, his replacement in the team, has scored twice this season, with both of those goals coming in FA Cup fixtures.
The United manager explained before the match that he wanted to rotate the team to keep it “fresh”, especially with Sunday’s game against Liverpool at Old Trafford.
And while the decision initially backfired, with Antony conceding the penalty that led to Palmer doubling Chelsea’s lead in the first half, he more than made up for it and had one of his better displays in recent memory.
His second-half pass with the outside of his boot to set up Garnacho is one of the best assists — and his first of the Premier League campaign — you will see all season.
After conceding the penalty and with United 2-0 down, the knives would have been out for Antony. But he silenced everyone with that assist. Simply magical.
(Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
How much has Palmer replaced Mount in Chelsea’s affections?
The 19th minute of this wild match was indicative of the shifting affections of Stamford Bridge. Cole Palmer had barely finished fake warming his shivering shoulders after sending Andre Onana the wrong way to convert his seventh penalty kick of the season when the chant went up in the East Stand and was quickly taken up by the Matthew Harding Lower:
“Mason, what’s the score? Mason Mason what’s the score?”
Until that moment, Mason Mount’s first return to the stadium in which he was once beloved had passed off with very little incident; the fact that he was among the visiting substitutes, a combination of injury and poor form so far preventing him from establishing himself in United’s starting XI, set the tone for a muted occasion.
Chelsea have hardly gone from strength to strength since his acrimonious defection to Old Trafford last summer, but Palmer embraced all talismanic responsibilities virtually from the moment he arrived from Manchester City in August and now he is the man supporters look to as the source of inspiration in good times and the sole beacon of hope in the darkness.
The fact that Palmer is already regarded with the rare level of affection once directed at Mount despite not being a Cobham graduate is partly a reflection of his sublime talent, and partly a reminder of how quickly loyalties can switch. Mount’s role at Stamford Bridge was restricted to a villain’s cameo, his arrival greeted with resounding boos.
For a time it appeared as if Mount would have the last laugh, jawing defiantly at Enzo Fernandez and helping United taunt Chelsea with nonchalant possession in the closing minutes. But it is Palmer who writes the scripts at Chelsea these days, and he had the last word with another nerveless penalty and a dramatic deflected winner in the final seconds.
Recovering his Chelsea standing is a lost cause for Mount; his priority now must be to win the love of the United faithful. Palmer faces no such challenges at Stamford Bridge.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
Can United’s games get any more chaotic?
Manchester United embraced the chaos until the final 82 seconds.
They had the win in their hands, only for Diogo Dalot to give away a penalty, duly slotted home by Pamer, before leaving Palmer unmarked to score from a corner moments later.
They have essentially waved goodbye to their hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League as a result of throwing away three points.
The billion pound bottle jobs😂
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) April 4, 2024
While their performance in the first 30 minutes left a lot to be desired, once they embraced the chaos and started to take advantage of the acres of space being left by Chelsea, they started to thrive in it.
When you compare and contrast this approach to what everyone witnessed at the weekend when Manchester City drew 0-0 at home to Arsenal, it could not have been a more out of control fixture. It was breathless.
Plenty has been made of United’s inability to stop teams from creating chances, and they have now conceded more than 200 shots in their last 10 fixtures, and it came back to haunt them yet again at Stamford Bridge.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
Should Chelsea fans be concerned about Moises Caicedo?
Is it the player or is it the system? Or both?
Grappling with that thorny question has been the primary theme of Moises Caicedo’s difficult first season at Chelsea, his attempts to live up to an impossibly large transfer fee taken out at the knees by a steady stream of costly individual errors.
His latest, an ill-advised sideways pass to which not even Benoit Badiashile was privy and which allowed Alejandro Garnacho to race through and ignite United’s comeback, fundamentally shifted the momentum at Stamford Bridge in a manner that Chelsea could not reverse.
It is understandable and easy to lay all of the blame at Caicedo’s feet in such moments; judging by his grimacing, head-slapping reaction, that is exactly what the man himself did. But given that many of his Chelsea teammates are prone to similar bouts of inexplicable carelessness, it is tempting to wonder if something bigger is ultimately responsible.
Caicedo did not just arrive at Chelsea saddled with a monumental price tag. He also left one of the most tightly structured teams in the Premier League for one whose very identity remained hypothetical. The lack of tactical balance and discipline under Pochettino has been impossible to ignore in recent weeks, and their staggeringly bad defensive record is compelling evidence.
None of that directly led to Caicedo deciding not to play the safe pass back to Djordje Petrovic, but an existence in which he is far too often left chronically isolated and exposed in the middle of the pitch must take a toll on decision-making.
He must own the Garnacho moment and many others this season, but it would be fascinating to see what he would look like in a more functional environment.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
What did the managers say?
We will bring you this after they have spoken at the post-match press conferences.
What next for Chelsea?
Sunday, April 7: Sheffield United (A), Premier League, 5.30pm BST, 12.30pm ET
Ah yes, that classic kick-off time for a game of football, woven into the very DNA of the sport and hardwired into the minds of fans — half-past five on a Sunday evening. Regardless of when the matches begin, Chelsea have a 100 per cent recent record against the men from Bramall Lane, winning four in a row since a 3-0 defeat during Project Restart in June and July 2020 following the first Covid-19 lockdown. That’s their only loss against them since November 1993.
What next for United?
Sunday, April 7: Liverpool (H), Premier League, 3.30pm BST, 10.30am ET
Three weeks on from that epic FA Cup tie, Liverpool are back for more. United also won this league fixture last season, 2-1, but haven’t managed a goal in the past two league meetings, including that 7-0 collapse at Anfield 13 months ago.
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(Top photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
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