The Manchester United support had spent much of the previous three days questioning what had gone through the mind of Cristiano Ronaldo. His flounce off towards the end of their impressive home win over Tottenham on Wednesday night and the subsequent in-house suspension cast long shadows.
Now those that travelled to London could ask the same thing of Scott McTominay. On as a late substitute, he locked onto another replacement, Armando Broja, on a Chelsea corner and proceeded to put hands around him. It was a highly risky move and one that blew up in his face when Broja accepted the invitation to go to ground.
The soft feel to the penalty award was rooted in how needless it felt from a United point of view but Chelsea were not complaining. Jorginho steered the kick past David de Gea and that appeared to be that.
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Wrong. As Chelsea tried to bat out time and record a sixth clean sheet in a row under Graham Potter, United conjured a dramatic sting – and one that nobody could say was not deserved. Luke Shaw hung up a cross from the left and there was Casemiro – the game’s outstanding performer – to loop a header towards the far corner. Kepa Arrizabalaga could only paw it against the post and it just about squirmed over the line. It was Casemiro’s first goal for the club. What a finale.
Potter had beaten United on the opening weekend of the season with his previous club, Brighton, winning 2–1 at Old Trafford to ruin Ten Hag’s debut in English football. But it was easy to paint this as Potter’s biggest test so far at Chelsea.
The frustration for Ten Hag about the Ronaldo situation was that it diverted attention away from the Spurs result, one that had allowed United to travel with confidence. The manager recalled the fit-again Christian Eriksen for Fred, who had to consider himself unfortunate after his performance against Spurs, and it felt like this was United’s best XI.
Ten Hag wanted to give Eriksen the freedom to press forward at the outset, making the formation more like a 4-3-3, and he felt empowered to do so by the presence of Casemiro in the holding midfield role. Casemiro’s positioning and assurance on the ball was a feature.
Jorginho opens the scoring for Chelsea from the penalty spot in the 87th minute. Photograph: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC/Getty Images
United settled well, knitting together some encouraging passing sequences, Casemiro prominent, so too Bruno Fernandes and with Raphaël Varane happy to step up with the ball. Shaw whistled an early shot wide; Antony worked Arrizabalaga with another from the edge of the area on the spin.
Potter started with a back three, César Azpilicueta asked to fill the Reece James-sized hole at right wing-back, but the system did not work, United calling the tune to such an extent that the Chelsea manager ripped up his gameplan on 36 minutes. He swapped Marc Cucurella for Mateo Kovacic and went to 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond.
United were kicking themselves at half-time because they should have been in front. They had two big chances, the first created for Marcus Rashford in the 28th minute by a slide-rule Fernandes pass after Casemiro and Eriksen had combined to rob Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Rashford’s first touch was heavy and Arrizabalaga was out to block the attempted dink.
The second followed a diving, clearing header from Lisandro Martínez and another throughball from Fernandes, this one for Antony. The winger had to curl it with his weak right foot to bring it back inside the post and he could not do so. In between times, Rashford eeked out a yard inside the box to extend Arrizabalaga.
Apart from a Mason Mount cross that Varane stretched to clear ahead of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Chelsea offered little before Potter’s change to a back four. They hinted at something thereafter leading up the interval but twice Aubameyang could not bring the ball under control when well-placed, the first from a fine Ben Chilwell delivery. Aubameyang also smuggled a shot just past the post.
Kovacic made a difference for Chelsea on the right of the diamond and it was one of those games when the tweaks from both of the managers were prominent. Ten Hag made a move on 52 minutes, replacing Jadon Sancho, whose influence was non-existent, with Fred and switching Fernandes to the left and Eriksen to the No 10 role.
There was an ugly undercurrent, with homophobic chants from the United support and abuse from those in the home seats for Varane, whose crime was to pull up with a muscle injury in obvious distress. He was emotional as he left the pitch, plainly fearing for his World Cup with France.
Raheem Sterling had the Chelsea fans howling when he fluffed an attempted touch inside for Loftus-Cheek from a Kovacic cross and it became extremely attritional as the second half wore on.
The quality dipped, especially that of United, who finished with Fernandes as a false nine. Trevoh Chalobah sent a header onto the top of the crossbar from a corner while at the other end, Fernandes watched Arrizabalaga turn a shot from him around the post. Cue the late drama.