Fletcher eases United's blues

Manchester Utd - 1 Chelsea - 0: Old Trafford has become the most august cemetery in English football. Arsenal's unbeaten run of 49 Premiership matches was laid to rest here last season and now Chelsea's sequence, which lasted nine fixtures fewer, has also gone the way of all flesh. There was of course no hush and the mourners from London in the crowd were roundly jeered.

It is still much too soon to say Manchester United's reputation has been raised from the dead but their combativeness was resurrected yesterday. In a game of fitful quality and gripping intensity their fingers were not to be prised from the 1-0 lead that came improbably through Darren Fletcher's first goal since the closing afternoon of last season.

The midfielder had been among the more vilified performers in United's abject loss to Lille last week, so much so that a bitter fan valued him at 1p in a mock auction on the internet. Supporters will not view any member of their squad as priceless for a little longer but their efforts here and the score will be cherished for a long time to come.

In addition to the win bonus United's players can enjoy the relief of knowing their interrogation is, at least, suspended. The questions will be asked of Chelsea, who in the last fortnight had already been eliminated from the League Cup by Charlton and downed by Real Betis in a Champions League fixture. Jose Mourinho has never had to face a spell of this nature since he came to England.

The end of his personal record against Alex Ferguson of six unbeaten matches with Porto and Chelsea will deepen his reflectiveness. There can, of course, be no genuine crisis when he has footballers such as these at his command. For long periods of the second half, when the introduction of Eidur Gudjohnsen brought pertinence and flow to the passing, they were far superior to United, but they could not exploit the advantage in their normal ruthless fashion.

After the interval Asier del Horno volleyed a Damien Duff cross over the bar but the other chances tended to be more muddled. Duff and Gudjohnsen linked slickly after 57 minutes but Didier Drogba was prone when he poked the ball narrowly wide. The most promising chance arose from another Duff break when Frank Lampard burst through to be foiled by Edwin van der Sar's close-range save on 68 minutes.

If games were to be measured purely by the distribution of chances United could claim to have had the better of it. In the 54th minute, for instance, Wayne Rooney had flighted a delectable pass over Del Horno and when Fletcher then rolled the perfect cut-back it was extraordinary to witness the arch-predator Ruud van Nistelrooy sloppily fire over.

The match had been decided instead with a 31st-minute goal plucked from a situation that had seemed bland. Ronaldo's cross had, after all, been hit from deep on the left and, even then, Chelsea fans would have been surprised rather than fearful to notice Fletcher moving for it beyond the far post. Mourinho even questioned whether the Scot had meant to score.

Nonetheless the midfielder's header looped over Petr Cech and John Terry before it dropped inside the far post. It is possible Fletcher was playing the percentages and seeking to send the ball into dangerous territory.

The Chelsea manager should doubt his own men rather than querying Fletcher's intention. The only person even to make a vague effort to mark the scorer was Michael Essien. The Stamford Bridge club have conceded at least one goal in each of their last five games. This might prove to be an intermittent fault that is soon repaired but the stringency has vanished for the time being.

United's back four fared better. Early in the encounter when both sides were obsessed with hitting the long ball it was Chelsea who found the tactic productive. A beautifully flighted pass took out a static Rio Ferdinand but Drogba could not beat Van der Sar from an angle. The United centre-back, though, did rally to ensure this would not be yet another afternoon when his concentration and character were doubted.

The same could be said of the entire United line-up. They must have taken encouragement early on from the ease with which Chelsea were knocked off balance. Too often the visitors failed to release men into telling areas and when Joe Cole sent Drogba galloping away from Mikael Silvestre he was only in position to fire into the side-netting.

It was the sort of day when the home crowd were ecstatic when any player harried Chelsea. United demand more than that but this will have done very nicely for the time being.

Guardian Service