Yes, I genuinely believe that this was the best game of the campaign.
And there are several reasons why.
But before we get into those, we knew we had to win. After the absolute disgrace of a performance against Leeds, United needed to get back on the horse and take advantage of a Chelsea side that were somehow worse than us.
We did that.
I also wasn't expecting a display reminiscent of United sides of yesteryear. We were awful once again and that was a pretty hard watch - I doubt anyone is going to want to revisit the highlights of this one - but I felt that this is exactly what we were going to do.
Carrick has shown very little in his time as interim to suggest that he is a manager who can get his team playing good football, is tactically adaptable or even make changes that influence the game.
And a lot of the issues we all have with him came to pass. Even when it came to his substitutions, Carrick made his first change much later than he usually does - Sesko and Cunha were taken off on the 80th minute!
He still relied on counter-attacks and moments to produce any form of output. United caught Chelsea a couple times on the break with Mbeumo in particular being the main man in tranistion.
This is also how our goal came about.
So in regards to him and play style, it was nothing that we didn't expect.
But why I say it is the best game of the season is because absolutely EVERYTHING went our way.
- We won, which was the most important thing
- We kept a clean sheet which was only our second away from home
- Bruno got his 18th assist of the campaign and is now just 3 behind the all-time record
- Cunha was back in the goals
- United beat Chelsea for the first time at the Bridge since 2020
- We did the double over them, the first since 2020 as well
- No dodgy red cards
- Successful Garnacho hate watch
And most importantly, with a 10-point gap to 6th place and just five games to go, it's safe to say that WE HAVE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FOOTBALL 🙌!
Even a crap United like this ain't gonna cock that up.
I don't think we've had a match this season that has had so many things go our way.
If I'm being completely honest, there's not that much more to say. We won and secured UCL football. That's about it.
I know that Carrick was always the frontrunner for the permanent job regardless of what happened tonight but to win and get us back into the UCL, I think his chances have just increased tenfold.
What you also know is that I am against this from the club as I have A LOT of reservations about him as manager. There's several posts about it on the site.
This doesn't mean that I didn't want us to win. Of course I did, but it really is beginning to become a bit of a catch 22 situation for us:
We get Champions League football 👌,
but it could mean Carrick gets the job 😬.
And what I've noticed recently is that most of the fan base are starting to warm up to the fact that while the former midfielder has done a great job, he might not be the right man to get us back to where we want to be.
That's not a good thing for him in trying to get the permanent position.
Ratings
Lammens - 6
Dalot - 6.5 MOTM
Mazraoui - 6
Heaven - 6.5
Shaw - 5
Mainoo - 6
Casemiro - 5.5
Mbeumo - 5
Bruno - 6
Cunha - 6
Sesko - 5
Amad - 5
Mount - 5
Zirkzee - 5
Carrick - 5
Man Utd beat Chelsea 1-0 and open up 10-point gap to 6th place | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)