If Chelsea take the initiative, you’d fancy United – Big Weekend on YT

Manchester United vs Chelsea is bordering on a must-win game for both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Frank Lampard – but whichever side tries to force the issue is the one which will likely lose.

Speaking on the latest – brilliant, obviously – episode of Big Weekend on YouTube, Winty says it’s almost in both manager’s interests not to send their team on the attack.

“It’s fascinating because those two are inextricably linked. Either you think they are a club legend who deserves time or you think they’ve been over-promoted and they’re only in the job because they’re a club legend. Or somewhere in the middle.

“Solskjaer’s in a stronger position because he’s been doing the job longer and that win against PSG this week dovetailed by the win in Paris 18 months ago mean he’s got a bit more in the bank than Lampard.

“The good thing about Chelsea this week is they kept a clean sheet. That doesn’t sound great, but as a manager you should rather draw 0-0 than 3-3, certainly if you’re throwing away a lead as they so often seem to be doing. So that 0-0 is encouraging.

“In this game, who’s going to take the initiative? The best version of Man Utd doesn’t take the initiative; it’s a version that sits back, plays five at the back, sits two holding midfielders in front of them. That’s a lot of bodies to break down and if they play like that and Chelsea take them on you’d fancy United because they’ll break at pace and that defence of Chelsea’s will struggle against that.

“But it’s whether Chelsea fall into that trap. They almost don’t want the ball because if they have the ball, United can hurt them with that pace they’ve got, just as they hurt PSG.”

Liverpool, meanwhile, have the perfect chance to follow up their 1-0 win over Ajax in the Champions League with another clean sheet when they begin Premier League life sans Virgil van Dijk against Sheffield United at Anfield.

Winty isn’t expecting a slip-up on this occasion, but there were clearly defensive problems even before Van Dijk’s injury so they’re not likely to be disappearing anytime soon.

“It’s the perfect game because Sheffield United look like they’re going to score once every three years.

“Liverpool have got the same problem as Man City last season. When you don’t do enough business in the summer and think you’ll be OK, then you lose your best defender and it looks like a massive mistake not to strengthen that central defence.

“They’re down to two senior centre-halves plus Fabinho who can play there, but you wouldn’t fancy it all the time, not least because it takes something out of that midfield. Joel Matip never stays fit enough to play anything like a full season. It does look very worrying back there.

“It’s telling that Van Dijk gets that injury that probably rules him out of the season and they immediately lose their favourites tag. In seconds they go from odds-on favourites to win the title to being odds-against and for City to be odds-on to win it. That effect from one man’s injury is astonishing.

“And let’s face it, he was there when they lost 7-2 to Aston Villa so it’s not like the problems don’t exist anyway. They’re just massively exacerbated.

“He hasn’t look imperious at any point since Project Restart, he looked shaky ever since we came back and in the Villa game he was poor. It’s not like we’ve got a line which says Liverpool were astonishing defensively and then Van Dijk gets injured and Liverpool are going to be in trouble. There’s a little bit of trouble there anyway.”

Aston Villa v Leeds, Arsenal v Leicester and Fulham v Crystal Palace are also discussed on the show, while Winty disagrees with host Mark Smith’s prediction that Jose Mourinho will lock the back door against Burnley after Tottenham’s astonishing collapse against West Ham last weekend.

“His reaction to throwing away that three-goal lead was quite telling,” she says. “Quite often before we’ve seen him throw players under the bus, and then you know what’s coming, that he’s going to park that bus and make life difficult, not just for the players but for anyone watching.

“But he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘this stuff happens, it happened, football happened’. And I think he will have enough faith in that team and what happened in the opening hour of that game.

“That Burnley side is poor. It was poor to start with and now it’s had quite a lot of injuries. They bought no one in the summer; they’re in for a long haul, a long struggle this season. I think he’ll go and blow them away.”

Watch Big Weekend on YouTube now, in association with Paddy Power.