The Premier League will be played in midweek, in which Manchester City away to Aston Villa, it is a matchup between third and fourth place, will Manchester City draw four games in a row?Arsenal and Liverpool, who are more in the top of the table, may be able to reap the benefits and hopefully stretch the lead on points. Interestingly, Manchester United's home game against Chelsea has been jokingly dubbed the litmus test of the Premier League, and only a defeat for Manchester United will prove that both teams are strong teams.
Manchester United currently sit seventh in the Premier League with 24 points and Chelsea are in 10th place with 19 points, with both teams having a bit of a poor record. United have won eight and lost six, including six defeats to Tottenham, Arsenal, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Manchester City and Newcastle, meaning they are all defeated against slightly stronger opponents. On the other hand, with the exception of Crystal Palace, Manchester United faced weaker opponents and won all of them. Such a clear result is the reason why Manchester United did not draw, and the high success rate of "abusing vegetables" is also a key factor in the fact that the points have not been greatly stretched.
Chelsea have five wins, four draws and five defeats, including draws against Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City, and beats to Tottenham and Brighton. However, defeats to Nottingham Forest and Brentford, as well as draws with Bournemouth, have given Chelsea a reputation as "strong when strong, weak when weak", and at the same time deeply affected the league scores, resulting in the inability to move up the rankings.
It can be seen that Manchester United and Chelsea seem to be heads and tails of the same coin, Manchester United has lost all the strong teams, and Chelsea has often been able to remain unbeaten when they meet strong teams. I don't know if these two teams are strong or weak in the eyes of each other?
In fact, it is very simple to get the result, according to the "Xi" of the two teams, if Manchester United can win, then it proves that Chelsea is a weak team, and from Chelsea's point of view, it should be a weak team that can beat itself, so Manchester United beating Chelsea seems to prove that both teams are weak teams. On the other hand, if Manchester United loses to Chelsea, according to the above calculations, it can be proved that both teams are strong teams.
As the saying goes, to prove the truth of a truth, if the same result can be deduced from two independent clues that are not related, then the truth has a certain degree of credibility. Now, from both Manchester United's point of view and from Chelsea's point of view, one conclusion can be drawn: if Manchester United wins, both teams are weak, and if Chelsea wins, both teams are strong.
I don't know if the fans of both teams will accept this conclusion, but Ten Hag certainly can't accept it. Last week's two away games, they were tied by Galatasaray and beaten by Newcastle, Manchester United almost lost qualification for the Champions League, and the race for the top four in the Premier League has become precarious. With Bayern Munich and Liverpool next week, followed by strong opponents like West Ham and Villa, there are big doubts about whether Ten Hag will be able to make it through the new year at Manchester United.
After a difficult month, Chelsea did not improve in the rankings, but they did not continue to slide, which is a result that is not meritorious, but not faulty. Chelsea, who have no European competition, are in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, leaving only Liverpool and Newcastle to repeat last season's Manchester United dream of winning the title. In the Premier League, the hope of finishing in the top four is getting slimmer, and the new boss Pochettino can only try to qualify for European competitions.
Manchester United and Chelsea met as a litmus test for strength, but in reality, it was a litmus test for the future direction of both teams. We are almost halfway through the fixtures, and only by winning can we lay a better foundation for the second half of the season. Otherwise, the two managers may soon hear the bell for the end of class.