Palmer’s late miss denies Chelsea fourth spot while Sesko saves Man Utd head coach’s unbeaten start
Two of the Premier League’s newest head coaches, Liam Rosenior and Michael Carrick, saw their perfect starts at Chelsea and Manchester United falter on Tuesday night. Football writer Lewis Ambrose looks at the implications of this in the race for UEFA Champions League qualification.
Contrasting late drama hit the Premier League’s two in-form sides on Tuesday, with Chelsea and Manchester United both dropping points for the first time under their new head coaches.
The two teams went into Tuesday looking to make it five wins from five under their new bosses Rosenior and Carrick. Instead they both drew, with Chelsea left to rue a late miss and Man Utd celebrating a point, thanks to Benjamin Sesko‘s equaliser in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
Following Liverpool’s dramatic home defeat by Manchester City on Sunday and Aston Villa’s recent struggles, Tuesday’s matches provided an opportunity for the Blues and Red Devils to underline their own top four credentials at the start of Matchweek 26.
Chelsea looked set to make good on the opportunity too, leading 2-0 against Leeds United with over an hour played at Stamford Bridge.
The fine form of Joao Pedro continued as the Brazilian netted his fourth goal in five games under Rosenior, capitalising on one of the many smart runs Chelsea made in behind the visitors’ backline.
In doing so, Joao Pedro became just the fourth Brazilian to score 10+ goals in back-to-back Premier League seasons, after Roberto Firmino (four from 2015/16 to 2018/19), Richarlison (2018/19 to 2019/20), and Matheus Cunha (2023/24 to 2024/25).
That opening goal also saw Cole Palmer claim his first assist of the season, with his first completed through-ball of the campaign; the creative midfielder is beginning to thrive under Rosenior and his understanding with Joao Pedro is clearly improving, the assist reminiscent of the sort of partnership Palmer struck up with Nicolas Jackson when he first joined the club.
Watch: All four goals in Chelsea v Leeds THRILLER
Palmer continued his own uptick in form by doubling the lead from the penalty spot, picking up where he left off with his hat-trick at Wolverhampton Wanderers at the weekend, which included two spot-kicks.
Leeds rallied though and, after Lukas Nmecha had scored from the spot, Daniel Farke’s side were gifted an equaliser after a series of Chelsea errors inside their own box.
The final stages saw Chelsea push for a winner but they couldn’t find one, with Palmer somehow missing what looked certain to be the winner in stoppage time, missing the target with an effort that was worth an Expected Goals (xG) of 0.87, according to Opta. Palmer, like everyone else inside Stamford Bridge, could hardly believe it.
“The ridiculous thing for us is that they’ve managed to score two goals in a five-minute period, when for the other 90 minutes of the game we were by far the better team,” said Rosenior. “We just made poor decisions in key moments.
“If we can just focus and concentrate for 90 minutes, this team has unbelievable potential, which you saw for probably 90 per cent of the game today. I feel like I already know what I want to work on to improve that, it’s just making sure we get the time to do it.”
Across London, Man Utd’s 100 per cent record under Carrick came to an end, but they did convert a late chance to rescue a point at West Ham United.
The game offered a very different test to those that had so far been passed with flying colours since Carrick took over, with the Hammers happy to cede possession.
Man Utd had less than 50 per cent possession in three of their four matches under Carrick before with the exception coming at the weekend, when they played over an hour against a Tottenham Hotspur side reduced to 10 men.
By way of contrast, United dominated the ball on Tuesday (64.9 per cent possession) and trailed for 45 minutes, the only time they have been behind under Carrick other than an eight-minute spell at Emirates Stadium last month, and struggled to create under the circumstances.
West Ham v Man Utd xG timeline
It looked as though that different type of challenge would trip them up, but their habit of scoring late goals this season saw them extend their unbeaten run to nine Premier League games, their longest undefeated run in the competition since January-May 2021.
Late goals have been a regular feature for Man Utd this season – they have netted 13 times after the 75th minute, with only Liverpool and Brentford (14) scoring more – and especially under Carrick.
With Sesko’s equaliser on Tuesday following on from Matheus Cunha’s 87th-minute winner at Arsenal and Sesko’s winner against Fulham in the third minute of stoppage time, it seems “Fergie time” is alive and well.
Man Utd fans will also be pleased to see the regular contributions being offered by their summer signings – of the 21 Premier League goals scored by Cunha, Sesko and Bryan Mbeumo this season, seven have come in the five matches since Carrick’s arrival.
“Being together for a short space of time, I think we’ve obviously had big highs of the results and the wins, and I think there’s times when it doesn’t quite go to plan, and you’ve got to take what you can from it,” said Carrick.
“And in the end, we’ve took the draw tonight. So, it was a tough game, didn’t come easy, sometimes football doesn’t come easy and you’ve got to find a way and tonight we found a way to take a point. “And as I said, we’ll move on from that and take some positives from it.”
Still, the points dropped on Tuesday will be welcomed by Liverpool and Aston Villa, who are in action on Wednesday against Sunderland and Brighton & Hove Albion respectively, as well as Brentford, who host leaders Arsenal on Thursday.
Chelsea will hope to get back to winning ways when they host struggling Burnley in their next Premier League outing on 21 February, with Man Utd next in action at Everton two days later.