Chelsea furious after Harry Maguire escapes red and Manchester United make most of VAR reprieves
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This was a real kick where it hurts for Chelsea and one that seriously damages their chances of finishing in the top four while suddenly raising Manchester United’s hopes that they might just do that.
The sense of grievance for Chelsea centred on two video assistant referee decisions – three if Olivier Giroud’s toes are taken into account. First there was confusion as to how Harry Maguire escaped sanction, and probably a red card, in the first half after his outstretched leg caught Michy Batshuayi in the groin as the defender lay on the ground, having slid into the Chelsea technical area.
It was fair enough that referee Anthony Taylor did not see it, but what about Chris Kavanagh, the VAR? Maguire’s post-match argument that he was protecting himself suggested he knew he had been fortunate while, for Chelsea, there was further hurt when the United captain scored the second goal and his first in the Premier League for the club he joined last summer.
Chelsea will believe they should have equalised by then, but an effort by substitute Kurt Zouma was ruled out for a push on United defender Brandon Williams by Cesar Azpilicueta – except replays clearly showed that the Chelsea captain was himself first shoved by Fred. So what could he do?
Still, Taylor took the VAR’s advice and disallowed the goal and did so again when Giroud was rightly judged offside, those toes were indeed in front of Maguire, before he headed the ball into the net.
Little wonder Frank Lampard was slumped in his seat on the bench at times.
The Chelsea head coach will feel this was a match in which everything conspired against him – there was even an early injury to midfielder N’Golo Kante, who limped off after apparently damaging an abductor muscle – while his conclusion that his squad needed a striker in the January window once more proved correct.
“We make more chances than any other team in the league bar Liverpool, I know that, but we are not finishing them,” Lampard said.
With Tammy Abraham failing a fitness test, it was a rare start for Batshuayi – only his fifth in the league in four years at Chelsea and his first in 919 days. It showed. He appeared out of touch and missed a golden chance to put his side in the lead when he shot wastefully wide after being picked out by Kante’s replacement Mason Mount.
It is now game on in the contest to finish fourth – we do not know yet know if Manchester City’s ban will be upheld and fifth place will be good enough to qualify for the Champions League – with Chelsea only now three points ahead of United, two in front of Sheffield United and with just a single-point advantage over Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur, who they face at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. In November they were 12 points clear. The pressure is on Lampard with the home game after that coming in the Champions League against Bayern Munich.
That pressure is also on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – as always, he will argue – who knew he could not afford to lose this game and came away having completed a rare league double over Chelsea, having beaten them 4-0 on the opening day of the season, and with the bonus of new signing Bruno Fernandes showing what a threat he poses from set-pieces.
“Top class,” Solskjaer said of his “conductor”, who he needs to get on the ball more often. The Portuguese midfielder struck a post with a clever free-kick and it was from his precise corner that Maguire evaded Antonio Rudiger to plant a header beyond Willy Caballero.
The Chelsea goalkeeper did, however, thwart what would have been a remarkable ending as Odion Ighalo came on as a late substitute and was put through by Fred, only for Caballero to save with his legs. That would have been an astonishing moment had the on-loan striker, the first Nigerian to play for United, scored.
The game had enough drama as it was, with United overrun at times, but holding on through a defence marshalled by Maguire and benefiting from the VAR calls to go into the lead just before half-time. Even that was controversial as it followed an incident in which Anthony Martial had caught Andreas Christensen, leaving the defender with a bloody nose.
Christensen did not reappear for the second half, but before that Martial had outsmarted him with his movement to meet Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s fine cross and angle a header across Caballero and into the net to give United a shock lead.
Solskjaer dismissed United’s first-half performance as “slow and cumbersome” and no one would argue with that, but they have now earned four clean sheets in a row and there is undeniably the nucleus of a promising side there, even if they have to find a better way of playing than relying on the counter-attack.
The defensive spirit was highlighted with a brilliant covering tackle by Eric Bailly, on his surprise recall, as he threw himself to deny the impressive Mateo Kovacic as the midfielder had a clear opportunity to beat David de Gea. “Heart of a lion,” Solskjaer said of Bailly.
That would have pulled a goal back at a crucial time and provided impetus for a fired-up Chelsea, fuelled by a swirling sense of injustice, and although they went close when an intelligent free-kick of their own, by Mount, also came back off a post, there would be no way back. Yes, they were unfortunate, but they need to take their chances. Just like United did and that, too, will have hurt.
