Man U vs. Chelsea
Venue: Old Trafford
Kick off: 4:30PM
The opening weekend of the 2019-20 Premier League campaign will conclude with an early-season treat at Old Trafford as Manchester United host fellow top-four hopefuls Chelsea.
Both sides now boast a club legend in the dugout and are looking to make fresh starts after summers of change and 2018-19 campaigns which, for one reason or another, failed to live up to expectations.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be delighted to get the new season underway, if only to distract from the relentless transfer speculation which has surrounded the club since the window opened.
Romelu Lukaku is gone, Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Daniel James are in, and perhaps even more crucially Paul Pogba is still a Manchester United player.
Whether that will still be the case when the European transfer window closes on September 2 remains to be seen, but numerous reports have suggested that Thursday’s English deadline was the cut-off point for any deal for the World Cup winner to take place.
Plenty of old faces do remain, then, but Solskjaer has been eager to freshen up the squad by targeting younger talent and already the United class of 2019-20 looks more dynamic than its immediate predecessors.
The Norwegian boss has stressed that there are no quick fixes, though, and there are certainly still plenty of areas to address following their sixth-placed finish last term.
Number one on that list is their defensive record.
United spent a world-record sum to bolster their ranks with Maguire and also splashed £50 million on Wan-Bissaka, and they will be hopeful that such a financial outlay results in a significant improvement after keeping just seven clean sheets all last season – only relegated Huddersfield Town and Fulham kept fewer.
Indeed, you have to go back to February 24 for United’s last Premier League shutout, so keeping Chelsea at bay this weekend would be a welcome start to the campaign, particularly for David de Gea following his under-par performances last term.
De Gea is yet to put pen to paper on a new deal having now entered the final year of his current contract, although the Spanish shot-stopper is understood to have agreed terms for a six-year extension.
The main concern amongst the fans now comes at the other end; Solskjaer insisted that it was the right time to let Lukaku leave, but failed moves for Paulo Dybala and Mario Mandzukic have left them without a replacement beyond youngster Mason Greenwood or playing Anthony Martial and Alexis Sanchez through the middle.
One record United will be eager to extend is their opening-day form, which has seen them lose just one of the last 26 times they have begun a campaign at home.
United are on a five-match winless streak in the top flight and could equal the club record for four successive Premier League home games without a win, but their pre-season form will have dispelled any of the doom and gloom which surrounded the end of last term.
The Red Devils won all six of their summer outings – including triumphs over both Milan clubs and Champions League runners-up Tottenham – and so come into the new season in far better form than they ended the old one.
Competitive action is a whole different story, though, and Solskjaer’s big rebuild could have perhaps done with an easier start on paper.
Meanwhile, Frank Lampard’s ascent to the Chelsea job has been quicker than he might have expected, but such was his impact at Derby County last season that he has been handed one of Europe’s top jobs after just one year in management.
The bookmakers regard Solskjaer as more likely than Lampard to lose his job first despite Chelsea’s notoriously trigger-happy nature when it comes to sacking managers, and there is an acceptance around Stamford Bridge that the club-record goalscorer will need more time than his predecessors have been afforded.
One thing he does have in his favour is the love of the fans, a crucial element Maurizio Sarri never quite enjoyed despite leading the Blues to a third-placed finish, Europa League glory and the EFL Cup final during his only campaign in charge.
The level of disillusion amongst the supporters under Sarri did not quite tally with some impressive achievements on the field, and you can be sure that Lampard would take a repeat of the 2018-19 campaign if offered it now.
Chelsea will certainly be looking to carry their form over from last summer having lost just one of their final 13 games across all competitions in 2018-19, and on the whole they have managed to do that in pre-season with four wins from seven games – including a particularly notable one over Barcelona.
However, some elements do need to improve, and chief among them is Chelsea’s away form. The Blues only won two of their last nine away league games last term and did not beat a single top-half team on their travels all season, taking just three points from a possible 27 from such fixtures.
Man United possible XI: De Gea, Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw, Pogba, Matic, Mata, Lingard, Martial, Rashford.
Chelsea possible XI: Kepa, Azpilicueta, Zouma, Christensen, Alonso, Jorginho, Kante, Pedro, Barkley, Pulisic, Giroud.