Manchester United pulled off an impressive 2-0 win over Chelsea yesterday to move four points off fourth-placed Manchester City with a game in hand. Jose Mourinho looked to have been prioritising winning the Europa League – which would also see Untied qualify for the Champions League – after he rested leading goal scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic against Chelsea.
The Red Devils manager insists he has not given up on securing a top-four spot, but admits he will rest key players in the Premier League should it become mathematically impossible. “Maybe we didn’t rest,” Mourinho told Sky Sports. “Maybe we just chose the team that we thought was the best team. I cannot yet give up the Premier League. “We have to try and if one day we are in the Europa League and in the Premier League the distance is too big, then we have to prioritise.”And nobody can criticise us if in the last matches of the league we do it in a different way. “But while it is mathematically possible, we have to go with everything we have.”
Jose Mourinho get his tactics spot on for Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Chelsea, but he did not do it the way it was expected. Mourinho has masterminded plenty of wins in big games down the years, but he usually does it with a defensive approach and by setting up with a team that, first and foremost, is very difficult to break down. On Sunday, he flipped that model on its head. United played with two up front and with wing-backs who were high up the pitch – they were on the front foot and went at Chelsea from the start. It meant United produced a brilliant attacking display as well as a convincing defensive one that was tactically aware of the different threats that Chelsea posed.
Mourinho asked Ander Herrera to man-mark Eden Hazard and he did it brilliantly, but United’s game-plan went much further than that.
They did not give Chelsea an inch of space anywhere on the pitch and did not allow them to get into any type of rhythm. It started from the front, where Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard never stopped pestering the Blues defence, and Paul Pogba, Marouane Fellaini and Herrera seemed to win every meaningful battle in midfield.
When the ball did reach Blues striker Diego Costa, he always seemed to end up on the floor because Eric Bailly and Marcos Rojo put him under so much pressure.
