Chelsea vs Manchester United: Round 2

"Sure you'll score 3 vs United today. I believe you"

Note: any delays in the production of this match report have been in whole part due to the 'writer' having a sad about the possible exit of London fanboy, Juan Mata. Although not fully recovered from aforementioned sad, it would have been remiss of said 'writer' to not report on the joy that preceded the moody strop to which she has descended.

Although it may be Manchester United who get the last (beautifully bearded) laugh this week, it was Chelsea who took all three points this weekend. In no small way did this make the task for David Moyes a bigger challenge than it was to offload Anderson. And somehow, somehow he pulled that off. More impressive than the move was Anderson not breaking any aircraft weight allowances to get make it to Fiorentina.

No matter how many times Jose Mourinho tries to have a playmate in David Moyes, he just doesn't take the bait. Mourinho tried to amp up the mind games by saying star centre-back right-back Branislav Ivanovic hadn't even trained all week only to go and have him start. Whereas David Moyes didn't even pretend that Rooney could start, and may as well have handed his tactics straight into Mourinho's hands.

It's unclear what Mourinho's directions to David Luiz were ahead of his second consecutive defensive midfield stint were other than smash everyone. Luiz took direction quite literally and knocked into Cahill within minutes of the game kicking off. And somehow won a free-kick by barging into Oscar just moments later. Note to Jose: must be clearer with directions to David. He approaches the task with vigour and often, hilarious consequences. Although amusing to give him free reign, a little more coaching may be essential for the yellow turns to red.

After scoring 2 goals in his last 2 games, and boasting an exceptionally special relationship with Nemanja Vidic it looked like Fernando Torres would get the call -- but it was Samuel Eto'o who got primed as poacher for Sunday. Not to take away from his poachtastic performance, but United's defence had a shocker. Of course Michael Carrick and Phil Jones both did their best to take the heat off of their back four. But the further the game went on, that early trip to Old Trafford looked less like a decent away point and more like points dropped.

The hat-trick'k also took away from a performance from an extra plucky Gary Cahill. Finishing the match with two assists is far from shabby for a centre-back, but let's be honest it should have been a goal an assist. More impressively is how Cahill restrained himself from pulverising perpetually petulant Rafael for *that* tackle. A better man than most - helped of course by his large Serbian back-up who took the opportunity to get a bit shouty.

Manchester United were lucky to get away with conceding just the three, while Javier Hernandez ensured that Petr Cech would still need another 20 clean sheets to take the Premier League record from BT pundit David James.

Normally this space would be reserved for the lamentations of Juan Mata remaining on the bench to exchange letters with Shinji Kagawa about their bosses. However, in light of the social media tsunami of gossip today, it's a little clearer why he didn't get to come one an embarrass Moyes as much as the roster of players he already had playing for him on the pitch. Amsterdam was fun, but who knew the Special Juan enjoyed Thursday night cup so much, he'd opt into again next season.

j xx