Nothing could have been better for Jose Mourinho to celebrate his 100th Premier League win as manager than beating Manchester United at Stamford Bridge by a comfortable margin of 3-1. His boys did just that on the Sunday night. A hat-trick from Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’O was just more than enough to see off a depleted Manchester United side which lacked any sort of confidence.
The result was written on the walls much before the match had kicked off as Manchester United officials made it final that neither Wayne Rooney nor Robin Van Persie would be playing on the derby night. And the inevitable happened. It was another easy outing for the Blues as they had the match in their pocket even before the end of the first half. Samuel Eto’O was the slayer this time round. His brace in the first half, to which he added one more to complete his first hat-trick in English football, put the home team’s victory beyond any doubt. Though the first goal came due to some good fortune as it took a poor deflection of Michael Carrick to balloon over David De Gea and into the back of the net, there was no doubt that United was poor in the back when Eto’O tapped in his second of the night from close range. If Phil Jones was the culprit for having let go the striker without much trouble leading to the first goal, this time lack of concentration of the United defenders could be noticed clearly.
As the second half, all those who had their eyes on the match expected United to come back on the pitch with more intent. But the same story continued. This time 
Ivanovic took advantage of United’s poor marking during a corner and pulled off a strong header straight to De Gea. De Gea parried it away only to find Eto’O on its way. The Cameroon striker scrambled it over the line to complete his hat-trick. United did tried to push forward after the third goal and did get their rewards when substitute Javier Hernandez took the opportunity of Chelsea defenders’ rare lapse of concentration to tap in a low shot across the goal from Phil Jones to pull one back. But there were no signs of any sort of comeback for United into the match. United suffered further humiliation when their captain Nemanja Vidic was sent off for a rash tackle on Eden Hazard.
With this win Chelsea are now back in the title contention as they are now just few points behind the league leader Arsenal. On the other hand, United, with 7 losses already in the season, are looking down the barrel and are literally out of contention for the title. Even their Champions League qualification for next year looks like getting harder as they are still 6 points adrift of the last qualification spot in the table.
Tags: Chelsea David De Gea De Gea Eden Hazard EPL Ivanovic Javier Hernandez Jose Mourinho Manchester United Michael Carrick Mourinho Nemanja Vidic Phil Jones Robin Van Persie Samuel Eto Wayne Rooney
