Chelsea won 3 goals for 1 against Manchester United thanks to the star player of the match David De Gea. The Athletic’s former, so many times decisive, fail in the 3 goals that gave him the pass to the FA cup final against Chelsea.
Paradoxically, De Gea was Solskjaer’s great ‘bet’ in eleven. The argentine Sergio Romero had played five FA Cup games until the date but the Norwegian coach, with the pass to the final at stake, decided to bet on his number one. But he left Pogba, Greenwood and Martial on the bench and came out with three centrals for the first time since the break, offering an image close to the pathetic.
Chelsea, without the injured Kante or Kepa or Pulisic in the eleven, also recovered the three centrals to end their bad streak against the ‘red devils’: this season they had lost the three games in which they had faced (two in the League and one of the League Cup).
The ‘blues’, without much football, but with more heart, gradually imposed their rhythm. Bailly’s injury in a collision with Maguire joined with Giroud’s goal on the brink of rest, a hard blow to Manchester that De Gea was able to avoid.
In the second half Chelsea did not wait long to hit again. As soon as they got out of the locker room, the red devils suffered a new blow. A bad game-changer from Brandon Williams ended at the feet of Mount, who connected a low and tame shot from the front that escaped through De Gea’s hands. This is a serious failure that adds to a long list of errors.
Solskjær entered Pogba and Greenwood in search of a comeback that never came. What’s more, De Gea appeared twice to get a bitten shot from Giroud in 58 ‘and from James in 74’. However, when Maguire deflected a Marcos Alonso cross against his own goal, he neglected his stick and the ball went through there.
It was clearly that it was not United’s or De Gea’s day, even so, United closed the gap in the 85th minute after a naive Hudson-Odoi penalty on Martial. Bruno Fernandes did not fail. Three De Gea mistakes that cost a final to Manchester United and make you think that Mourinho was not so crazy when he sat him on the bench.