CarlingNet - No 1 for Match Reports

Man United v Chelsea 02/11/96 3.00

Man United              (0) 1 Chelsea                 (1) 2 FT
Poborsky 81                   Duberry 31
                              Vialli 61

Gianluca Vialli's second-half strike turned Manchester United's nightmare fortnight into a fully-fledged crisis as the champions lost their 35-game unbeaten home league record.

Alex Ferguson dismissed the 5-0 mauling at Newcastle as ``a blip'', discounted the 6-3 defeat at Southampton, and bemoaned his side's Champions' League misfortune on Wednesday.

But there was no disguising that something is seriously amiss after Ruud Gullit's side carried out the manager's tactical scheme to perfection to condemn United to an Old Trafford league defeat for the first time since Nottingham Forest's 2-1 victory in December 1994.

After Eric Cantona and Roy Keane had missed excellent opportunities in the opening half hour, Chelsea's organised football always threatened to get its reward.

Michael Duberry's 31st-minute header from Dennis Wise's corner slipped through the grasp of Peter Schmeichel to send Chelsea on their way, although Ferguson must have wondered who was marking the England Under-21 man.

Yet there was precious little Schmeichel could do when Phil Neville played Vialli onside from Frank Leboeuf's long ball on the hour, the Italian taking all the time he needed before slipping home his sixth goal of the season.

Substitute Karel Poborsky gave United hope of a dramatic comeback with a deflected volley 10 minutes from time.

But for all their frantic effort, the equaliser would not come as United suffered a third successive league defeat for the first time since the week in April 1992 that gifted the title to Leeds.

Cantona's isolation in the lone front role in midweek had been apparent, and recalls for Scholes and Solskjaer Poborsky and Jordi Cruyff making way allowed the Frenchman licence to roam deep.

From the first minute, when a long ball almost put Solskjaer away, Cantona was far more prominent than he had been against Fenerbahce, but there was still something lacking in his game.

That was clear in the 11th minute. Cantona's great ball set David Beckham away on the right and the Frenchman was in position A, unmarked 16 yards out, when the England midfielder pulled back from the dead-ball line.

But Cantona's right foot made contact with nothing but fresh air, a collective gulp of disbelief reverberating round Old Trafford at the unlikely sight.

It was all that Chelsea United's bogey side and reinforced by the return of Leboeuf - needed to believe they could get something from the game.

Gullit's decision to relegate himself to the bench Craig Burley's more combative qualities preferred hinted at defensive tactics, yet while they did defend in depth, the Londoners were willing to break in numbers.

Their passing Wise and Burley increasingly influential was at least a match for United's, for whom Cantona was trying in vain to make things tick.

Had Keane been able to keep the ball down from six yards when Beckham's 28th-minute free-kick found his head, the nerves might have evaporated.

But the crowd were still digesting that miss when Schmeichel allowed Duberry's header to slip past him and roll into the net.

It might have been worse, Dennis Irwin's desperate block preventing Vialli flicking home Wise's cross and then a Vialli centre narrowly eluding both Duberry and foraging United old boy Mark Hughes.

The second half was a similar story, United dominating possession but Chelsea doing far more when they had the ball.

Wise should have done better after the hard-working Burley and Hughes had combined, Roberto Di Matteo shot over, and Burley then drilled across the face of goal and just out of Hughes' reach after his run forward was not picked up.

So it was no real surprise when the second did come, and while the United players and the crowd looked to the linesman to come to their aid when Leboeuf put Vialli away, Neville selected ahead of elder brother Gary seemed to have played the Italian on.

United had recovered from a two-goal deficit against Everton back in August, and they redoubled their efforts to do the same again.

Cantona and Duberry were booked after a flare-up in the Chelsea box the Frenchman's third caution in as many Premiership games David May's half-blocked header was scrambled away, and then Cantona's flicked effort shaved the angle.

Having survived the short-lived siege, Chelsea looked in control, but when Poborsky's volley from a half-cleared Beckham corner was deflected past Kevin Hitchcock only United's second on-target effort of the game the mood changed.

Suddenly it was all hands to the pump, Hitchcock busier than he had been all afternoon. But the second would not come, and few would deny that Chelsea deserved the triumph that takes them above the champions in the table.