Manchester United Vs. Chelsea FC, UEFA Champions League Preview: Blues Lacking Hope, But Not Hopeless - We Ain’t Got No History

Losing 1-0 at home in the first leg of a UEFA Champions League tie is a difficult thing to overcome. When two teams are fairly even, it’s tough to overstate the advantage that the winning team has in the second leg of the tie. After Manchester United’s 1-0 win last week at Stamford Bridge, they hold such an advantage over Chelsea. Obviously, the Blues are a good enough team to overturn a one goal deficit against anyone in the world, but it doesn’t get any tougher than needing a win at the Theater of Dreams.

Graham MacAree from SB Nation’s Chelsea FC blog We Ain’t Got No History isn’t terribly optimistic about his team’s prospects in the second leg, but he hasn’t completely written them off either.

Coming back from 1-0 down at home is difficult but not impossible. In fact, we’ve seen it happen already this year, when Inter Milan beat Bayern Munich 3-2 at the Allianz Arena after losing 1-0 at the San Siro - and I’d guess this match is about as closely matched. However, in keeping with my usual massively sunny personality, I’m not expecting a win here. That might make me a bad Chelsea fan, but last week hurt and I can’t say with any confidence we’ll turn it around.As we’ve seen in their recent matches against Schalke and AC Milan, Inter aren’t exactly the gutsiest, most mentally tough team in the world. Chelsea are very much capable of doing just about anything that Inter does these days, so all hope is not lost.