United let it slip... and Torres will never get ’Pool magic back

Manchester United’s point at Stamford Bridge may have felt almost like a win, but this was probably the weekend when the balance of the title race tipped in favour of Manchester City.

United should have beaten this awful Chelsea side, and the serious Manchester United teams of the past would have done so with ease. Instead they did their best to throw it away, and rallied too late.

The match was Fernando Torres’ 45th for Chelsea, in which time he has scored five goals. What is becoming clear is the form he showed for Liverpool between 2007 and 2009 was the exception rather than the rule. He was able to score almost three goals every five games because he was playing in a high-quality team that worked very hard for him and produced a lot of chances. Because he scored such a high proportion of that team’s goals, he started to think of himself as the reason the team was special. In fact, his teammates had made him look better than he is.