Manchester United v Chelsea | Alan Gardner

• Hit F5 or use the autorefresh tool for the latest updates • Send yours thoughts to alan.gardner.casual@guardian.co.uk • Follow today’s games with our live scores centre 3.36pm: Did anyone see that coming ? Other than Gary Neville, of course. 3.30pm: So, Fernando Torres starts for Chelsea, even though there is no Nemanja Vidic for him to terrorise. I suspect that he and Sturridge will not both play as out-and-out strikers, with one dropping off a la Wayne Rooney for United. For the home side, Darren Fletcher makes his first league start of the season to form an industrious centre-midfield partnership with the rejuvenated Anderson. For stardust, we’ll have to look to the flanks, with Nani and Ashley included in Sir Alex Ferguson’s side and the exciting Juan Mata starting for Chelsea. The teams are in , and it’s good news for Manchester United Nando: Man Utd (4-4-2): De Gea; Smalling, Jones, Evans, Evra; Nani, Fletcher, Anderson, Young; Rooney, Hernandez. Subs: Lindegaard, Berbatov, Giggs, Park, Carrick, Fabio Da Silva, Valencia. Chelsea (4-4-2): Cech; Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Cole; Lampard, Ramires, Meireles, Mata; Sturridge, Torres. Subs: Turnbull, Luiz, Romeu, Mikel, Malouda, Lukaku, Anelka. Today’s designated scapegoat: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) Preamble: Hello and welcome to the glacé cherry on today’s Super Sundae offering, the first meeting of the season between the Premier League’s two biggest beasts, Manchester United and Chelsea. Manchester City may have aspirations to break up the cartel but since Chelsea brusquely shouldered Arsenal aside at the start of the 2004-05 season, these two have won 15 of the 21 major domestic trophies on offer in this country – not to mention contested the only all-English European Cup final. United, the reigning champions, have scorched their way to the top of the table after four games but Chelsea are lurking in their shadow, just two points behind after a low-key start to life under André Villas Boas. And as with objects in the rear-view mirror, Chelsea may loom larger in United’s mind than an objective analysis would dictate. Ostensibly still a work in progress, as Villas-Boas attempts to coax Chelsea’s old guard to stop doddering around and pass the ball a bit quicker, maybe even consider running , the Blues arrive at Old Trafford with a better Premier League record at United’s home than any other team. The season before last, Chelsea effectively sealed the title with a 2-1 victory there – though in 2010-11, United won four out of five encounters between the sides (including the Charity Shield). It surely won’t be that simple again. Added to the usual mix of my-team-is-better-than-yours mewling are enough subplots for a Dickens novel. How will Villas-Boas’s mixture of natty ties and touchline squat thrusts fare when pitched against the wiliest cat in town, Sir Alex Ferguson? Can Chelsea reinvent themselves whilst maintaining the girder-like constitution that has long seen them overtake Arsenal as London’s No1 challenger to the Manchester hegemony? Will Fernando Torres ever get his mojo back ? And can anyone stop Wayne Rooney? Let’s find out. Premier League 2011-12 Manchester United Chelsea Premier League Alan Gardner guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 18, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.