With the Manchester teams continuing to dominate the standings - both real and fantasy points - we come upon the first real test of the season. Chelsea arrives at Old Trafford as the first team not already eliminated from the title race to face either high-flying Manchester side. I don't really believe that Chelsea are in the race for the championship but with the collection of raw talent on hand and the fact that we're early in the season means we can't entirely write the possibility off (like we can for Arsenal, Spurs, and Liverpool). Additionally, the memory of the United/Chelsea match at the close of last season should also be fresh in the minds of fantasy managers as there weren't that many points to be had there.
The occasion of Manchester United vs. Chelsea brings us a major dilemma. Do we assume that United will continue to plow ahead with their domination of their opponents? If we make that assumption then it is a strong move to keep the United players - DDG, Rooney, Chicharito, etc - who you may have at a discount.
The alternative is to assume that Chelsea will make things very difficult for United and regardless of the outcome, make fantasy points hard to come by. If you make that assumption the question becomes "where do I spend the money I'd been plowing into ManYoo players?"
I wish there were some statistical technique that I had unearthed to give you some hidden insight into the answer to the dilemma posed above. Sadly, I don't have anything like that handy and if I did, I'd be gambling on my inside information rather than writing about it. What I will push forward are a few thoughts:
1) United are at home and over the past four seasons they are 3-1 against Chelsea at Old Trafford (when Chelsea were arguably more talented) with two clean sheets. The last 2 matches have been 2-1 affairs with one going in each direction.
2) I like Chelsea's array of talent a lot more now with Mata, Sturridge, and Lukaku attacking, Luiz at the back, and AVB seemingly willing to tell Torres to have a seat until he starts doing his job and scoring goals. The flipside of that statement is that the roster still feels disjointed with an odd mix of fading talents (JT, Lamps, Drogs, Elk) and rising stars (the group above and maybe Ramires if you're feeling charitable about his potential and athletic skills). What Chelsea still lack is a core of exceptional players at the peak of their powers to bring together the old and the new. FloMal, Mikel, Alex, Ivanovic, and Torres (plus Essien) were supposed to be those guys and while only Torres has been abjectly horrible none of the others among the healthy of that group have been exceptional either. FloMal has had some exceptional stretches and Ivanovic has had some stretches of well-above-average-ness but that's about it. More than enough on most days but not against the United buzzsaw.
3) By contrast to the picture of Chelsea painted above, United have a great combination of young (DDG, Smalling, Jones, Anderson, Cleverly, Welbeck, the twins, and Chicharito), old (mostly just Giggs and Rio now that GNev and Scholes have retired), and exceptional players in their primes (Rooney, AY, Vidic, Nani, and Evra). When playing at home, it is going to be hard to overcome that combination.
Overall, my verdict (in the tradition of this year's version of this column) is that I'd favor United's attackers to do very well in this match-up but I'm not as bullish on their defenders and DDG being able to hold a clean sheet.
Verdict: Advantage United Attackers.
With my extended United vs. Chelsea preview out of the way, here are some notes on the other notable match-ups for the coming week:
