The first Manchester United and Chelsea game of the 2020/21 FAWSL season kicked-off on Sunday 6, September in a warm day at Leigh Sports Village and ended with a 1-1 draw that seemed like a loss for Chelsea who missed a lot of chances. It was well-deserved point for Manchester United since they did not give up and did their best to equalise even when they were behind.
This first clash of the season was full of action from both sides and was fun to watch for women’s football fans in general and Manchester United and Chelsea fans in particular.
It is true that the result serves both teams opponents at the start of the new season and especially Manchester City who are more likely to battle with Chelsea over the league title, yet, this match can be used as a catalyst for Chelsea to step up their game and do better in the upcoming fixtures, especially in terms of finishing efforts.
For Manchester United, this draw will give more confidence to the whole team who can build on their performance to do even better in the next matches as they look forward to competing for the top three spots. This result will help them believe even more in achieving this goal.
In this tactical analysis, we will provide an in-depth analysis of the match while focusing on both teams tactical plans, flaws and things that went well for them in terms of tactics. Also, influential players’ contributions will be highlighted and studied to see how they were able to make the difference for their respective clubs.
Lineups
In this opening fixture, Manchester United preferred to play with a 4-2-3-1 lineup composed of four defenders at the back which are Kirsty Smith and Abbie McManus as centre-backs ahead of Mary Earps, the team’s goalkeeper, while Millie Turner and Ona Batlle played as full-backs.
In midfield, Casey Stoney, the teams coach, relied on both Katie Zelem, the team’s captain, and Hayley Ladd for midfield duties while playing with Ella Toone as an advanced playmaker behind Kirsty Hanson and Leah Galton who played on the wings, and Jane Ross, the team’s striker.
Concerning the visitors, Emma Hayes, the teams coach, played with a 4-1-4-1 lineup made up of Carly Telford as a goalkeeper and a powerful defensive line with Maren Mjelde on the right and Jonna Andersson on the left while the teams captain, Magdalena Eriksson together with Millie Bright are the two centre-backs.
In midfield, Ji So-yun, Melanie Leupolz and Sophie Ingle played as central midfielders who often exchanged positions to be balanced both in defence and in serving their striker Sam Kerr but most of the time Sophie Ingle was the one playing ahead of defence as a defensive midfielder and Ji So-yun, Melanie Leupolz formed the midfield line with Fran Kirby and the Norwich Guro Reiten on the wings. Emma Hayes left plenty of talents on the bench such as Bethany England, the new signed Pernille Harder and many other interesting players.
A promising and competitive Manchester United
The Red Devils started this match in the best possible way by pressing high on Chelsea’s defence and obliging them to make mistakes in their own half especially in the first 20 minutes. It was an intelligent plan from Casey Stoney to minimise the danger of letting Chelsea build from the back, knowing that if they are allowed much space, they can be very dangerous and Manchester United would end up losing the midfield to Chelsea and therefore conceding a lot of goal scoring opportunities.
You can see in this picture how this well-organised high pressing disturbed Chelsea’s defence since all players were consistently marked and players who had the ball were always left with few options.
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