The big boys of English soccer will face each other in a crucial match this weekend as Manchester United host Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday. With Man. United at the top of the league, Chelsea is chasing the leader, a situation that they haven’t found themselves in for the past few years. 

Both clubs are coming off mid-week defeats in the Champions League; however, Chelsea is already guaranteed a walk through to the next round, while Manchester United will face Benfica on Dec. 6th in a rubber-match to try and book their place into the next phase.

In the EPL season, on the other hand, it is a different story as Manchester United has pushed out to a 3 pt. lead over Chelsea in the Championship race and will be hoping to push the lead to 6 pts. with a victory on Sunday.

Both teams are powerful and capable of victory, but the key to the match will be Chelsea’s defense, and the way they deal with players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs on the wing. As for Chelsea, their wing play is not as potent as a few seasons ago when Robben and Duff were slicing up defenses.

While Chelsea will probably play a hard, powerful game of attrition and look to counterattack, Man. U can keep the Chelsea defense unsettled, and if Saha and Rooney are on their games, they will be able to dictate the tempo and finish the goals.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 4:20 am and is filed under Soccer World, England. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.