That's because Grandpa Giggs is 139 years old... And still one of the best players on the pitch We made 10 changes after Sunday... How many players did you rest (injured and suspended players don't count)? Hazard (who was on the bench), who else?
Rafael Anderson Giggs Hernandez fletcher Wellbeck have made more appeances for Unitd than Berttrand Cahill luiz azpilicueta Romeu Moses piazon and even Studge and mata for Chelsea. And that's without counting giggs Even ignoring Giggs age our team was on average younger. Oscar and Hazard are young and inexperienced too. Terry cole lampard ivanovic Torres hazard Oscar all did not start
Oscar you could maybe argue is a little inexperienced, even though he has had a couple of seasons playing first team football in Brazil, but Hazard has almost 150 appearances in Lille's first team, that's hardly inexperienced is it? Let's be honest here, Chelsea's multimillion pound attacking lineup of household names should of tortured United's makeshift defense from start to finish but young Wootton and Keane did an excellent job for most of the match, especially 19 year old Keane who is one player on that pitch (along with Piazon but he was replaced by Hazard just after half time after being completely ineffective) that you definitely can say was inexperienced.
We did torture your makeshift defence and miss chance after chance. If we had won 6-3 in normal time, no one would have complained.
Really? It seemed to me that the game was pretty even for almost all of 90 minutes, Chelsea didn't take control of that game until Anderson tired and was substituted leaving Wootton, Keane, Powell and Tunnicliffe at the heart of United's team.
We missed chance after chance. Wish we had clinical Hernandez/RVP playing for us instead of Torres/Studge. That's why you or City will win the title and we won't. PS Can I apologize to all United fans for the abuse of Wellbeck by one in our end Disgusting No excuses. Would have your Danny>our Danny all day long too
If only our defence wasn't constantly decimated by injuries. If we'd had Jones and Smalling at CB our reserve/youth team would have beat you more than likely.
I think the two starting teams were pretty similar, but the benches and subs were the difference - we brought on Powell, Tunnicliffe and Macheda, you brought on Oscar, Ramires and Hazard. Obviously that was partly Chelsea chasing the game, but we didn't have any players of that quality and experience on our bench at all. I do wonder if RDM felt the need to make a statement after the weekend (as he did in his post match comments) by making sure Chelsea won last night, and so made sure he had the players on the bench to make the impact when needed.
Maybe, but with the World Club Championship and fixture congestion in Dec coming up, I think many Chelsea fans myself included, would not have minded losing in 90 mins and running Mata into the ground too ...with Shaktar and City around the corner
Guess only time will tell on that front - RDM's got you back to winning ways which is important, and he showed some bloody mindedness which is important in a manager imo. But if Mata, Hazard, Ramires and Oscar are shagged and cost you points against Swansea, Shaktar and Scouse then it won't have looked like a particularly clever move. Aye, but then we actually have a second team - without Terry and Lampard I don't think Chelsea had anyone who could have feasibly replaced Luiz, Cahill and Mikel.
both weak in defence, as the scoreline proved. Yours was just far more inexperienced and can almost be excused for letting in 5 at the Bridge, ours have no excuses although I didn't think you should've had a penalty at the end and Cech was extremely daft to pass it to Romeu unexpectedly. Other two goals terrific though. Great game, brilliant atmosphere.
You don't think that was a penalty? I thought it was pretty much the same as Wootton's on Ramires, both were clumsy and both were definite penalties.
Azpi's arm touches Hernandez and he goes down and holds his ankle after. Difficult for the ref at the time but on replay it's a dive mate. Ramires was barged in the back, hard.
He was running at pace directly into his back and he definitely made good contact with Chicharito, and I don't remember seeing him holding his ankle, I remember him rolling over and getting straight back to his feet to appeal.