Eshlin Vedan
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and our own Jose Mourinho put their rivalry behind them on Sunday as we recorded a 2-1 victory over the defending Champions with Jesse Lingard and Romelu Lukaku scoring for us. Willian opened the scoring for Conte’s men but Lukaku went on to equalise for us before Lingard scored the winner.
Considering that the rivalry between Conte and Mourinho has been very visible this season, one would have wondered whether the two would shake hands before the game but they did. Mou also shook the hands of all Chelsea players before the game.
Conte was previously fuming with Mourinho after the self-proclaimed “special one” said that he behaved like a “clown” on the touchline and took another dig at the Chelsea boss by bringing up his match-fixing allegations.
When asked during his pre-match press-conference if he would accept a handshake from Mourinho, Conte said:
“I’m not interested to speak about this topic. In the past both of us said things, okay.”
Before the game began, the two managers did the professional thing and shook hands with each other before retreating to their respective dugouts.
Though David De Gea has been phenomenal for us this season, he should not be immune to criticism and the Spaniard should have done better to deny Willian’s opener. Though Willian struck the shot with power, it beat De Gea in his near post which really should not happen at the highest level.
Lukaku who has now scored 13 goals this season has been criticised for not delivering against bigger sides, however, the Belgian did redeem himself by scoring on this occasion. After netting past his fellow Belgian international Thibaut Courtois, Lukaku pointed to the sky with a look of relief on his face.
While speaking about the way that we fought back, Mourinho said (as quoted by Football.London):
“You can only win against the top teams with that humble attitude. It can happen, the attitude has to be really special and the players showed that.
“The beginning of the game was blue, we took some time to adapt to some new positions on the pitch, the players in the midfield took some time to press Kante and Drinkwater, but we found that balance. In the second half we were solid, we didn’t create a lot of chances as against Chelsea that is not possible.”
It was indeed an important victory and a much-needed one as well. It’s time we build our momentum and not let slip from here.
