Chelsea vs. Manchester United: Red Devils sink nine-man Blues 3-2

The way around this, combined with the continued decline of 4-4-2, is to either find strikers capable of fulfilling two roles or to deploy other two-striker systems, as United and City have with their diamond and 3-5-2 respectively. Those experiments have been inconclusive - for United, an intriguing idea that winger-obsessed Ferguson seemed unlikely to ever try, and for City, largely a disaster.

United, however, with their midfield shortcomings, have benefited from the experimentation, as it has allowed them to find systems where their sheer firepower can carry the day. The result has been a kind of emulation of their class of 2008, where 4-2-3-1 was used not as a rigid blueprint to give each player a clearly-defined job that suited them best, as it is with most teams today, but represented a clear division between attack and defence - six holding back, four in attack.

Mark Clattenburg’s crew certainly hasn’t covered themselves in glory today.

Before the two red cards, this was one of the best matches of the season anywhere in Europe. Unfortunately, the referee will now be the story.

If Ivanovic made contact with young’s legs, the decision was a correct one. However, the contact appeared to be minimal, if there was any contact at all. Young went down as if he’d been shot, which won’t do much for his reputation as one of the Premier League’s most notorious divers.

United and Chelsea are level at 2-2, and an already brilliant match looks to be getting even better by the minute. The goal came in the 53rd minute on a long sequence where the Red Devils failed to clear multiple times. Mata was played through by a ball over the top of the defense, but couldn’t get off a shot. He cut back and crossed to Torres, who couldn’t beat his defender. The ball dribbled wide to Oscar, who put another cross into the center of the penalty area. This time, Ramires met the ball with a powerful header after a brilliant late run into the box and nodded past De Gea to make it 2-2.

Since the goal, Chelsea have kept the pressure up and have forced De Gea into a big kick save at his near post. The momentum of this game has done a complete turnaround, and Chelsea now look like the most likely side to win.

Fantastic stuff from Chelsea considering the way they started the game, should be a great second half.

Mata stepped up and curled an unstoppable shot around De Gea, and suddenly Chelsea began to take over. They kept their foot on the accelerator in the final minute and Mata forced another save out of De Gea. Incredibly, for all of their struggles in the first half hour, Chelsea are a bit unlucky not to be level.

At this point, getting to halftime down 2-0 would be a decent accomplishment for the Blues. They don’t look like scoring and need to make adjustments before this game gets out of hand. Through 30 minutes, they’ve shown very little.

Chelsea have looked in control for much of the first 15 minutes of the match, but they’ve been absolutely taken apart on the counter on two occasions. The Blues were probably hoping to control the match for a while before getting too aggressive, but their plans have been flipped upside down.

Chelsea had the first half-chance of the game in the first 90 seconds, but the goal actually came on van Persie’s second shot from long range. He might have just felt confident in his abilities early, but it wouldn’t be shocking if this was a tactic of some kind from Alex Ferguson and his staff.

Chelsea injuries and suspensions

Manchester United injuries and suspensions