Chelsea lose thanks to bad luck, something they can’t afford anymore

Chelsea’s top four chances are slowly but surely slipping away. On a day where Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur faltered, they did themselves no favors at all, losing at home to Bournemouth. They’re now 11 points behind Spurs and a stunning 17 points back of table-toppers Leicester City. At this rate, they’re going to need two of the other big six teams -- plus Leicester -- to completely crumble to get back into Champions League.

Saturday’s scores

They don’t get any closer than this.

Surely we can forgive the linesperson for that. This is the hardest call they’re going to have to make all season. But, sadly for Chelsea, they did get it wrong.

They had an excellent opportunity to put some distance between themselves and their rivals on Saturday, but City fell flat on their faces, getting bulldozed by Stoke. The 2-0 score doesn’t tell the story -- the Potters were poor in front of goal and should have had six. Manuel Pellegrini is blaming ... injuries.

“Today we didn’t have the legs to defend as we needed to or attack in the way we liked and we didn’t create many chances ... we don’t have a priority to get any one player back in the team in particular - we have five or six key injuries and I don’t think we will have any of them back this week.”

He has two players at every position and has been reluctant to give Kelechi Iheanacho and Patrick Roberts chances, but sure. Injuries. Let’s go with that.

Here are some selected lines from the match report at The Busby Babe.

The first half was far from convincing from United, who initially failed to threaten the West Ham defence.

Otherwise all of the good chances of the opening period were West Ham’s.

The game lulled in its second quarter.

However, the Hammers remained in the ascendancy, and if anything, their dominance became all the more marked.

The best chance of all came with 10 minutes left on the clock, when some excellent work from substitute Memphis Depay saw him skip through and pull a low cross back for Martial. He should’ve scored, but sliced his effort just wide of the West Ham goal. The match in microcosm.

The final whistle was booed at Old Trafford.

For the first time in 13 games, Jamie Vardy failed to score on Saturday, but his performance was the perfect example of why he’s not just a flash in the pan. On the goal that completed Riyad Mahrez’s hat trick, he won a header in the midfield, nodded it to a teammate, then took off on a run towards goal. When he got the ball back, he turned and laid off a perfect assist for Mahrez. He’s not just a goal-poacher, but someone who can win the ball back for his team and set up goals as well. This performance was just as good as any one where he scored.

On the other side, yikes, Garry Monk. Swansea are looking like a relegation fodder side and really should be getting this badly beaten at home by anyone. He’ll be lucky to keep his job for another week.

Aaron Ramsey has spent his entire season at right wing, while the likes of Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini have gotten starts at times when Arsenal had enough fit wide personnel to play Ramsey in the center. This is nonsensical, and Ramsey showed why against Sunderland, turning in a man of the match performance. The Gunners might be top of the table comfortably if he’d been in that spot all year.