I thought we were made to really suffer by Sunderland's energetic performance, and we can count ourselves a little lucky to escape with a point. Its disappointing that we passed up on yet another chance to put some real pressure on Chelsea, but I guess with Sunderland having taken points against many of the big teams this season, a draw against them can be considered a respectable result in the context of this season, especially when it could have been much worse for us.
I believe the biggest takeaway from this is not really about the lack of quality, but rather the lack of versatility in the players we used today. The idea behind the starting XI was the correct one imo: with Berbatov running himself into the ground in Valencia, it made perfect sense to start with some fresh legs up front in Owen and Macheda. Furthermore, given the energy of Sunderland's midfield, playing with two in the middle could have cost us, so the choice of Anderson, Fletcher and Scholes was sound as well. The catch is, for the system to work, Anderson, being the pseudo-left midfielder, would need to have the tactical know-how to know when to drift in to help Scholes and Fletcher, and when to stay out left help protect the leftback. Furthermore, when Anderson does drift in, one of either Owen and Macheda would have to slot in to the left flank to cover the space left behind, essentially playing a little like what Pandev did for Inter Milan last season: a more defensively minded forward down the left. As it turned out, Anderson clearly lacks the tactical savvy that is necessary for his role, having stayed perpetually in the middle, and while Owen and Macheda tried to drift out to the left at times, they were clearly only familiar with playing centrally, and failed to be a factor at all. As a result, this caused our team to have a really lop-sided look to it, with our only real attacking outlet down the right through Nani and Rafael, and the left totally non-existent, made worse by the presence of the more defensively-minded O'Shea at left back. Little wonder that we put out a disjointed performance and offered little going forward.
The substitutions for Berbatov, Hernandez and Bebe late on helped to give our a team a more familiar shape to it, and we had a few opportunities to sneak the win, but with Sunderland still working hard, it was really tough for us all the way to the end. Imo Rooney could have helped a bit today tbh, as he was familiar with playing as a left wing forward, and could have filled the gap left behind by the centrally-drifting Anderson. Ultimately today is just a day when the tactics were right, but the players used were unfortunately unable to adapt their game to make it work.