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Chelsea know Manchester United result could have significant consequences for summer transfer drive

AFP via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images

Events have conspired to make Monday's Chelsea versus Manchester United clash a potentially defining encounter for the present, but the future ramifications are arguably more important.

Manchester City remain bullish about overturning their two-year Champions League suspension at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but their current expulsion still provided a more reinvigorating tonic for their rivals than any winter break could have.

The race for fourth place is littered with flawed runners, so much so that fifth now being good enough almost feels charitable to the established elite.

It offers hope to Sheffield United, Wolves and Everton, but more traditional heavyweights Tottenham and Arsenal responded to the situation with victories on Sunday and United can tighten everything up with success at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues have gradually seen their cushion to the chasing pack deflated by a run of one win in five Premier League games since the turn of the year. There was, in the end, no help sourced in the January transfer window, despite CAS passing judgement in Chelsea’s favour by reducing their Fifa sanction.

They have since confirmed the £33million summer arrival from Ajax of winger Hakim Ziyech, the first signing of Frank Lampard’s tenure as head coach and the beginning of an overhaul that could easily exceed £150m.

United will look to spend big, too, and while Monday's clash will in part be framed as one team who opted to keep their powder dry in mid-season against another who splashed out (up to £67.6m for Bruno Fernandes) and scrambled emergency reinforcements (Odion Ighalo), the consequences for each team’s longer-term rebuild could be significant.

Both clubs will be in the market for a striker this summer. Each have also scouted left-back options, although Brandon Williams’ emergence at United may have taken the edge off the urgency to boost that particular position.

Most pertinently, United and Chelsea are expected to be among the most prominent pursuers of Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho, despite Ziyech’s arrival.

Sancho will cost around £120m — even more if he shines with England at Euro 2020 — and those looking to acquire the 19-year-old will pitch to him as the poster boy at the vanguard of a new era.

He supported Chelsea as a youngster but an absence of Champions League football would be hugely significant to a player defying his tender age to achieve consistency at the highest level.

There is inevitably a nod to history when Chelsea and United meet, such was the ferocity and quality with which they once contested the title, but a brief walk down memory lane only highlights how far both teams currently reside in their own shadows.

The task for both Lampard and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is to deliver tangible signs of progress, illuminating a pathway to challenge Liverpool and

City at the summit once again.

United appeared to signal that was possible when beating Chelsea 4-0 on the opening day of the season, albeit a scoreline not reflective of the balance of play, but they arrive in west London six points behind the hosts and with just one victory in their last 17 League visits to Stamford Bridge.

Solskjaer masterminded a 2-1 victory at Chelsea in October, an EFL Cup fourth-round meeting which sits in the canon of faltering home performances that has caused Lampard so much consternation.

Rising star: Both Man Utd and Chelsea will chase Sancho in the summer (AFP via Getty Images)
Rising star: Both Man Utd and Chelsea will chase Sancho in the summer (AFP via Getty Images)

Their travails have centred on being unable to break teams down who then catch them on the counter-attack, the exact game plan which has yielded United’s best results under Solskjaer, although without Marcus Rashford they look less equipped on paper to produce the clinical finishing that particular approach often demands.

The challengers are jostling for position behind Chelsea, but Lampard insisted they cannot discount United, even with victory on Monday offering the possibility of a nine-point gap.

“No, not at nine points, not at this time with the amount of points left to play for and the way the Premier League is,” he said. “Certainly not. I look at the League table two or three times a day sometimes. You can become obsessed with it. That’s for me to do. For the players, reminding them sometimes is fine.”

Reflecting on the presence of Wolves and Sheffield United in the chase for European football, Lampard reflected that “you can get promoted to the Premier League, spend £100m and it doesn’t guarantee you success”.

The sentiment of wasting money could easily apply to United, whose commercial pre-eminence has not translated to securing the best in class on the pitch, despite a spiralling wage bill.

For some, United have become the example not to follow in recruitment terms. But, as with everything in football, results frame perceptions and United and Chelsea have a big chance this evening to prove they are on the right track.

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