Chelsea Fan's View: Did Manchester United Expose Jose Mourinho's Achilles Heel?

Sunday's result against Man United was incredibly frustrating for Chelsea supporters. To have United escape with a draw from a goal in the last 30 seconds was particularly galling. Even more so that the free kick, and the gap for Robin Van Persie to exploit for his goal, happened as a result of Brana Ivanovic being sent off, contentiously, for a second yellow card.

Phil Dowd played a blinder for the home side on Sunday, missing United players rugby tackling John Terry and Ivanovic in the penalty area on the one hand, and yellow carding Ivanovic for an innocuous hand-off on the other.

But is it a little churlish to blame the result on some frankly inept refereeing? Were Chelsea themselves partly to blame for letting United back in to the game?

At 1-0 Chelsea had wrestled the initiative from United, who had played better than we had been led to believe possible beforehand. Chelsea were cruising at that point and United's heads had dropped. On 66 minutes Oscar was replaced by Mikel – a tactic we have seen Mourinho employ before. Mikel played alongside Matic in the middle of the pitch, and Fabregas pushed up to the number 10 role.

It should be added that Jose may well have replaced Oscar as he had picked up a yellow card, and with Dowd in charge a second yellow for one of Chelsea's best players was always a possibility. For many supporters however, and perhaps United, it appeared that Chelsea were looking to shut up shop for the last 25 minutes and attempt to catch United on the counter-attack. A tactic executed extremely well in the win against Arsenal.

Of course United did appear to up their game and attack more after this, but as to whether they were invited on is conjecture. But it is true to say that with each United attack, Chelsea did appear to defend deeper. Chicken and egg I suspect.

The initiative may well have been lost, though, and it begs the question: was Jose trying to hold on and protect the 1-0? Why did he not go for the kill and bury Utd by scoring a second goal? To be fair Chelsea did have their chances to score more goals and had they done so this conjecture would be redundant.

But it does pose a valid question. Does Jose have an Achilles heel? Does his arrogance and belief that he can tactically outwit anyone lead him to attempt to protecting a 1-0 lead rather than going for the kill?

After all, the same thing happened against City. Chelsea were 1-0 up and cruising, but let all three points slip, conceding a late goal to the worst possible scorer from our point of view: Frank Lampard.

Of course, had Chelsea held out against United for another 30 seconds, and had Dowd not sent off Ivanovic, Jose would have been proven right and Chelsea would have walked away with all three points. All ifs, buts and maybes of course, proving that the margins between success and failure in football are wafer-thin. Also, that Lady Luck likes to have her say.

On another day, Ivanovic would not have been sent off. On another day the ball would not have been parried away by Courtois invitingly into the path of Van Persie. On another day, the defender would have got in ahead of van Persie.

But, there is a nagging sense that by going for more goals Jose could have taken luck - and more to the point Phil Dowd - out of the equation.

Ultimately it is about risk, reward and decision making, and frankly Jose Mourinho is far more qualified to make those calls than I am. And as to whether protecting a 1-0 score line is Jose's Achilles heel: I am inclined to look back at the evidence from Jose's unparalleled managerial career. After all, the hallmark of Jose's Chelsea MkI side was their ability to see out a 1-0. In fact such was this ability that Chelsea supporters would sit back and relax when Chelsea went ahead, knowing that nine times out of 10 the points had all but been secured.

If Sunday tells us anything, it is that Jose's Chelsea MkII have yet to fully mature into the machine the manager would like. You also have to factor in the opposition. It is all too easy to forget that the opposition can and will have their say, and whilst all supporters want to see their team dominate, sometimes, for one reason or other this will not happen.

Last Sunday was such a day, but at the end of it Chelsea had secured a point away at what will undoubtedly be one of their rivals for the title. On reflection I suspect Jose and the supporters will be satisfied, if not happy with that, although the supporters may have been happier watching the Unitetd fans celebrating the equaliser like they had just won the Champions League. That perhaps was more telling about the current state of Chelsea, and indeed United.

David 'Stamford Chidge' Chidgey presents the award winning Chelsea FanCast TV show and podcast which can be seen every Monday at 19.00 on chelseafancast.com or You Tube or heard at mixlr.com/chelsea-fancast/ or downloaded from ITunes. Follow us on twitter @StamfordChidge and @ChelseaFanCast