The race for the top four is widely considered to be one of the most exciting in the Premier League on a year to year basis, and it’s not exactly hard to see why. The ‘top six’ in the top flight are pretty undisputed when it comes to their finances as well as their overall quality, and as such, seeing who will make it and who will miss out is always pretty intriguing. This year has been particularly fascinating given the nature of the ‘battle’ as it were, because all of the teams involved keep slipping up in one way or another.

Two such teams are Manchester United and Chelsea, who are considered by many to be the rank outsiders behind Tottenham and Arsenal in the top four war. These two teams are very familiar with one another and have shared a series of memorable moments over the years, with arguably the greatest being their 2008 UEFA Champions League Final in Moscow. Now, 11 years later, they’re fighting for the right to just be involved in the competition next season. That’s the nature of football for you, of course, because everything can change in the blink of an eye (which is what a decade feels like these days).

It’s safe to say that the wheels have come off pretty dramatically for Manchester United in recent weeks, to the point where they probably would’ve been in a really comfortable position by now if they hadn’t let their form slip. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been forced to lick his wounds, and now, he needs to re-group and put a plan in place for this squad to bounce back. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they were forced to make their way through the Europa League next season, but let’s be honest, it’d still be a pretty significant blow.

Chelsea, on the other hand, are just kind of going through the motions right now. It’s no secret that Maurizio Sarri is probably going to leave Stamford Bridge when the season comes to an end, but he can still do some pretty big things before he leaves. The Blues are just one semi-final tie away from booking their place in the Europa League Final, and they’re also in a prime position to finish fourth in the Premier League. Even with that being the case they’re still being viewed by many as the underdogs, so make of that what you will.

The Red Devils’ last six games are pretty horrendous when you analyse the evidence, starting off with a 2-1 defeat to Wolves in the Premier League (to follow up their FA Cup embarrassment). They lost a narrow game to Barcelona in which they gave a fairly good account of themselves, before edging out a narrow 2-1 win over West Ham. In their next three games they had one of the worst stretches that we’ve seen from a Manchester United team in quite some time, losing 3-0 to Barcelona, 4-0 to Everton and then finally 2-0 to title chasing rivals Manchester City.

Things have been much more positive for Sarri’s men, although there have also been a few bumps along the way. They beat Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0 before an Eden Hazard masterclass game them all three points against West Ham United. Then, they narrowly beat Slavia Prague 1-0, and then won the second leg 4-3 (although it looked a little nervy at times). A 2-0 loss to Liverpool was sandwiched inbetween that, and in their last outing, they drew 2-2 with Burnley in a game that was pretty controversial after the Clarets employed quite a lot of perceived ‘time wasting’ tactics in an attempt to secure the draw.

Manchester United lead the overall head to head standings as you’d expect, and despite their mixed fortunes this season, they’ve also been in control of the two games they’ve played against the Blues. Back in October, they shared a 2-2 draw which was pretty entertaining, and then in February, United won 2-0 in the FA Cup. Chelsea will be well aware of what they did wrong and what they did right in those two encounters, and in the current day, you’d have to imagine they’d fancy their chances against this wounded United team.

Matteo Darmian made his first start in quite some time against City during the week, with Pereira being picked ahead of Matic in a somewhat surprising move. David de Gea is still expected to start at the weekend despite his recent drop in form, with Lukaku, Martial and Sanchez all being tipped to return to the starting XI. Herrera has been in training recently and could well return following his recent spell on the shelf through injury, whereas Scott McTominay will be assessed before the game after he failed a fitness test before the game against Manchester City.

Chelsea wonderkid Callum Hudson-Odoi is set to spend quite a while on the shelf after his recent Achilles tendon injury, which could open up the door for Willian or Pedro to replace them. Loftus-Cheek is set to be replaced by either Barkley or Kovacic at Old Trafford, with Christensen being expected to maintain his place in the team. Marcos Alonso missed out against Burnley through injury with all of the signs pointing towards him also missing out on this one, whereas N’Golo Kante’s rib injury that he sustained against the Clarets could wind up keeping him out of this game. As you can imagine, that’d be a fairly substantial loss for the visitors.

Manchester United vs Chelsea Betting Prediction

We can see this game being pretty cagey in the opening exchanges, with neither team really pushing the tempo like we all know they’re capable of doing. United will be incredibly careful when pulling the trigger given the kind of run they’ve been on lately, whereas Chelsea will be a little bit more confident – but won’t want to leave themselves exposed in the middle of the park. It’s quite a tough back and forth game to predict given where both clubs are in the table, but after the first 45 minutes is out of the way, we can see the game really start to open up.

We think Chelsea are going to capitalise on some kind of defensive error from United at the back, taking the lead in the process. They’ll then go on to add a second, and while United will probably get one back, it won’t be enough to push ahead for the equaliser. In essence, we think it’ll be a pretty similar encounter to when United lost to Wolves in the FA Cup, which as you can imagine, will probably heap the pressure onto Ole even more so than it already is.

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