Eto’o finished Manchester United’s dreams, Who will stop Arsenal ist not Fulham, Liverpool still unstable (Video)
Chelsea 3 Manchester United 1:Samuel Eto’o gave Mourinho’s 100th Premier League win
Chelsea were already title contenders before this consummate command performance, though reckoned by most to be only on the tails of Manchester City and Arsenal.
Now any doubters will know. Mourinho’s team are the real deal.
Of course, this Manchester United are a wounded, hobbling beast compared to the formidable animal of old. Only at the beginning and end of this humbling afternoon did they show any of the fire of recent times.
But they still have to be beaten, and in some style bar a late, late stutter, Chelsea did that in style to give Mourinho his 100th league win as a Chelsea manager.
Samuel Eto’o has had his critics since his expensive summer arrival from Anzhi Makhachkala, but his hat-trick here is something the 32-year-old and many Chelsea fans will remember for a long time.
David Moyes’ dreadful season took a turn into even more grim territory at Stamford Bridge. Yes, there was a late Javier Hernandez goal, but United ended the game with 10 men after Nemanja Vidic was sent off for an awful injury-time tackle on the irrepressible Eden Hazard.
And it could have been still worse – Rafael should have gone too for a lunge on Gary Cahill.
This morning United are 12 points behind Chelsea, 14 off the top, with 16 games to go. The title is long gone, and a top-four place looks a mighty long way away.
United have now lost four of their five games in 2014, but it is the manner of this comprehensive defeat that will strike a chord of fear into Old Trafford.
United started well, but as soon as Chelsea scored they folded – something they never used to do.
At no point did they have any answer to the searing pace and skill of the electric Hazard, Willian, Oscar or Ramires. Even the old boy Eto’o was too much for their rocky defence.
Time and again Chelsea sprang out of defence with a venom and speed which left United’s sluggish midfield trailing in their wake. In Hazard, Chelsea probably have the most electric player in Europe on their hands right now.
Without either Wayne Rooney or Robin van Persie it was always going to be hard for Moyes’ men to have the edge. They did though start with intent, as Ashley Young tested Petr Cech with a sharp drive.
But Chelsea steadied, rode the storm, and struck. Eto’o gathered the ball on the right, meandered inside and as no challenge came, fired in a shot that deflected off Michael Carrick into the far corner.
Chelsea won every loose ball and were first to every challenge, and even though Patrice Evra and then Adnan Januzaj went close, and Danny Welbeck shot straight at Cech and could possibly have had a penalty for Cesar Azpilicueta’s challenge, they were now in control.
Oscar should have scored from Eto’o’s flick, but seconds before the break they struck again. United failed to clear a corner, Ramires found Cahill in acres of space, and Eto’o steered in his low cross. Game over.
Three minutes after the break, yet another corner exposed United’s woeful defending. Willian’s kick was nodded down by the unmarked Cahill, David De Gea somehow kept the ball out with his elbow, but Eto’o was on hand to stab home the rebound.
Humiliation looked on the cards for Moyes and his men. United were shapeless, ragged and lost. Only Januzaj provided any threat.
But Chelsea relaxed with the game won, Oscar went off, and United had their late flurry. Welbeck pulled the ball back, Phil Jones shot low, and Hernandez from six yards out steered it past Cech. It was no more than a consolation.
Moyes has never beaten Mourinho as a manager, and he was thoroughly out-witted here. Once Chelsea settled into their game their strikes were lethal, but just as importantly, Mourinho has instilled a steeliness and ruthlessness into this team, as he has done with all his best sides.
At one point earlier in the season, sloppy goals were being given away, points surrendered. Those traits are now ironed out – this was a sixth win in a row in all competitions.
Mourinho left for a glowing tribute night at the Savoy hotel in the Strand hosted by the Football Writers’ Association, Moyes for his own lonely cloud of gloom.
Chelsea vs Manchester United Match Stats
Chelsea: Cech 7, Ivanovic 7, Cahill 7, Terry 7, Azpilicueta 7, Ramires 6, Luiz 6, Willian 8 (Matic 85′), Oscar 6 (Mikel 67′), Hazard 7, Eto’o 9 (Torres 78′).
Subs not used: Cole, Lampard, Mata, Schwarzer.
Booked: Luiz
Goals: Eto’o 17′, 45′, 49′
Man Utd: De Gea 6, Rafael Da Silva 5, Evans 5, Vidic 5, Evra 5 (Smalling 61′), Jones 5, Carrick 7, Valencia 6, Januzaj 7, Young 6(Hernandez 56′), Welbeck 5.
Subs not used: Giggs, Lindegaard, Cleverley, Fletcher, Kagawa.
Booked: Young, Valencia
Sent off: Vidic
Goal: Hernandez 78′
Referee: Phil Dowd
Att: 41,615
Chelsea 3 Manchester United 1 Match Video
[media id=1021 width=610 height=340]Liverpool 2 Aston Villa 2:Liverpool lost in Anfield
Owner John W Henry made a rare visit to Anfield expecting to see the swagger that had carried Liverpool to the brink of the title race, only for them to stutter and splutter against an energised Aston Villa side.
A few rows further back in the directors’ box, Roberto Martinez looked on and left believing that when he returns here with Everton in eight days’ time, he can be the manager who prospers where his predecessor routinely came unstuck.
Certainly, when the visiting pair stopped to speak behind the scenes after the final whistle for perhaps their first tete a tete since Martinez was overlooked for the Anfield manager’s job in favour of Rodgers, one appeared considerably happier than the other.
Villa were eye-catching and brave and should have secured another scalp to sit alongside those of Arsenal and Manchester City by the interval, with Gabriel Agbonlahor leading the assault. But Liverpool were also a mess of their own making.
Rodgers’ teamsheet resembled a betting slip with six offensive-minded players shoehorned into the starting line-up in front of a back five that convinces as much as a chocolate fireguard at present.
Little wonder he was soon ripping it up, trying to wrestle back the ascendancy Paul Lambert’s midfield diamond formation had given the visitors.
Agbonlahor should have scored inside 45 seconds and Ciaran Clark hit the post with a header before Andreas Weimann tapped in and Christian Benteke profited from another error from goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, his fourth aberration in his last five league games.
“Probably across the board, we were not very good, myself included. So we needed to change the structure of the team,” said Rodgers, who quickly switched to a three-man defence and then brought on Lucas at half-time to stiffen the midfield, only to see him limp off amid fears he has another serious knee injury.
It is against that unbalanced backdrop that Liverpool will launch a final bid for Basle’s Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah this week when finding solutions to other problem areas would surely serve them better.
Reinforcements at left-back and the need for a dominant midfielder were high on the agenda last summer, but answers remain in short supply. Muddled thinking appears the order of the day.
The timing of Daniel Sturridge’s goal on the stroke of half-time offered an escape route which was taken on when Luis Suarez tumbled over Brad Guzan’s injudicious challenge and Steven Gerrard dispatched the penalty.
“I was pretty confident in myself that I hadn’t touched him [Suarez] so I said to him, ‘Did I touch you?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. That’s the honest truth of it,” said Villa goalkeeper Guzan.
“Sometimes they go for you and sometimes they don’t. Unfortunately for us it didn’t.”
Replays showed there had been contact, however, and Suarez did what every striker the world over would do.
Yet the platform the penalty provided did not go on to produce a winner for Liverpool and, tellingly, Rodgers was reluctant to use summer signings Iago Aspas and Luis Alberto again.
As for Villa, Lambert is irked by what he says is a “misconception” that his 10th-placed side are struggling this season. Perhaps if they can muster the verve displayed here at home then they will change how they are perceived.
“There is a misconception of the way we are going at the moment,” said Lambert, who revealed Matthew Lowton was absent after being disciplined for missing training.
“People think we are doing poor and we are sitting 10th – it’s really, really incredible, the perception of it.
“We have kicked on in a lot of aspects, like our goals record, the way we play.
“Everything goes against us. I don’t think we get the credit at certain times, I really don’t. They have been knocked unfairly in certain aspects of it. But they have been excellent for me.”
If there was a positive for Rodgers as he surveyed two points dropped, it was that this had been an experiment that should not be repeated any time soon. Not with buoyant Everton looming in a potentially pivotal showdown in the chase for fourth place.
“He’ll know it’ll be a completely different game when the derby is here,” said Rodgers of Martinez’s spying mission. “It just wasn’t one of our better days. We’ll be ready for the derby game for sure.”
Liverpool vs Aston Villa Match Stats
Liverpool (4-2-3-1): Mignolet 5, Johnson 5, Toure 5, Skrtel 6, Cissokho 4; Gerrard 6, Henderson 6; Sterling 7, Suarez 6, Coutinho 5 (Lucas 46, 6; Allen 66, 6); Sturridge 6. Goals:Sturridge 45, Gerrard 53 pen.
Aston Villa (4-3-1-2): Guzan 6, Bacuna 7, Vlaar 8, Clark 7, Bertrand 7 (Luna 81); El Ahmadi 7 (Sylla 62, 6), Westwood 7, Delph 7; Weimann 7; Agbonlahor 8 (Holt 49, 6), Benteke 7.Booked: Clark, El Ahmadi, Bertrand, Bacuna. Goals: Weimann 25, Benteke 37.
Referee: Jon Moss (Tyne and Wear)
NEXT UP – Liverpool: Bournemouth (a) Saturday, FA Cup.
Aston Villa: West Brom (h) Jan 29, League.
Liverpool 2 Aston Villa 2 Match Video
[media id=1022 width=610 height=340]Arsenal 2 Fulham 0:Arsenal King Of the London Derby
Arsenal’s squad is too thin. They lack firepower. They will blow up soon. Well it has not happened yet, and there was little sign of Fulham puncturing Arsenal’s belief that they can stay the distance.
Wenger has made no secret of his desire to bolster his attacking options but while he has such enterprise in midfield, the Gunners remain the team to catch.
The 2-0 victory over Fulham was Arsenal’s sixth successive victory since Christmas. They have scored 12 goals in those matches, nine coming from their array of talented midfielders.
On Saturday it was Carzola’s turn, the little Spaniard slotting home two in a five-minute spell early in the second half to undermine all of Fulham’s good work in the first.
Carzola said: “The best thing is that the boss gives me freedom so, when we don’t have the ball, I have to stick a little to a certain position but, when we have the ball, there’s more freedom between Mesut Ozil, Jack Wilshere and me to interchange positions, and it’s something we players like a lot.
“This season, the team is much more solid, we’re much better at closing out games. We need to continue this form, because of Chelsea and Manchester City.
“At the moment, we’re showing that we’re up there with them. Maybe at the start of the season nobody put us up as high as Manchester City or Chelsea, maybe because of the signings they made, but it’s ultimately demonstrated on the pitch and, right now, Arsenal are above them and our objective is to keep fighting with them.”
Arsenal continue to be linked with transfer targets. Juventus’s Mirko Vucinic is the latest to join a queue that includes Schalke’s Julian Draxler, Real Madrid’s Alvaro Morata and, closer to home, Fulham’s Dimitar Berbatov.
On Saturday’s showing, the fleeting contributions of Berbatov hardly suggested he was out to impress Wenger, who was delighted with Cazorla’s impact.
“He shows the mental qualities we have in our side,” said Wenger. “Our defensive stability shows the solidarity in our squad because everyone helps out and works for each other.
“Even when you go through difficult periods in a game, people put a shift in to help their partner, and Santi is one of them. He is a player who, offensively and defensively, works very hard.”
With the goals coming from all sections of the team – the last 12 have been spread between seven players – the pressure on Wenger to buy in haste and regret at leisure is eased.
“It’s important to know everybody can score. If you depend on one player then you have to put him in cotton wool to keep him fit,” said Wenger, who conceded he is in the market for another striker.
“Ideally, if it’s possible, we’d like another. I give you my phone number, if you find an exception, you can call me.
“We are open to strengthening our squad, but as well we have [Niklas] Bendtner back in the squad on Monday, and [Yaya] Sanogo is back in the squad on Monday week.”
Fulham will take heart from a sturdy performance based around the return of the towering Brede Hangeland to the heart of defence alongside his young doppelganger Dan Burn.
Burn, 21, recalled from a loan at Birmingham, stepped into his Premier League debut with impressive authority against the slick movement of Arsenal’s interchanging midfielders.
Shoring up the worst defence in the Premier League – 48 goals conceded – is the priority of manager Rene Meulensteen if Fulham are to stay out of the bottom three.
“We strongly believe that if we get more clean sheets that will keep us up,” he said. “We have enough quality to win other games and to create chances to score.
“I look back to this performance and I feel we played really well. I said to the players at half-time, ‘Everything we worked on, you have put into practice’. But there were another 45 minutes to go and we knew what they could throw at us.”
They’re a nuisance, that second 45 minutes.
Arsenal vs Fulham Match Stats
ARSENAL: Szczesny 6; Sagna 7, Mertesacker 7, Koscielny 7, Monreal 7; Flamini 8, Wilshere 7; Gnabry 7 (Podolski 71), Ozil 6 (Chamberlain 86), Cazorla 8; Giroud 6.
Subs not used: Rosicky, Fabianski, Jenkinson, Gibbs, Park.
Goals: Cazorla 57, 62.
FULHAM: Stekelenburg 6; Riether 6, Hangeland 7, Burn 6, Richardson 6; Sidwell 6, Parker 6; Dejagah 5 (Bent 68), Dempsey 6, Kacaniklic 6 (Kasami 86); Berbatov 6.
Subs not used: Riise, Stockdale, Karagounis, Duff, Hughes.
Man of the match: Santi Cazorla
Ref: Lee Probert (Wiltshire) 7
Arsenal 2 Fulham 0 Match Video
[media id=1023 width=610 height=340]English Premier League Match Week 22 Results
Sunderland 2 Southampton 2
Man City 4 Cardiff City 2
Crystal Palace 1 Stoke City 0
Norwich City 1 Hull City 0
Arsenal 2 Fulham 0
West Ham 1 Newcastle 3
Liverpool 2 Aston Villa 2
Sunday, 19 January
Swansea City 1 Tottenham 3
Chelsea 3 Man United 1
Monday, 20 January
West Brom 20:00 Everton
Barclays Premier League Match Week 22 Table
