Manchester United claimed all three points in their Premier League clash with Chelsea at Old Trafford over the weekend and Keven Kilbane believes the home side's marshalling of Eden Hazard was pivotal to the victory.
Speaking to Nathan Murphy after the match, the former Irish international said: "Well it did look very different after half an hour when Chelsea took the lead. The way that United set up and I felt maybe in the early parts of the game - I think it was quite negative.
"It was all about destruction - it was all about stopping Chelsea and where Chelsea were going to hurt Man United and I think overall that was the case.
"Certainly the man-marking job - we saw it last season from Ander Herrera on Eden Hazard. We saw it today from Scott McTominay - he just had the role 'Stop Eden Hazard' - wherever he goes 'you just stop him'.
"On the other side of the midfield, it was more Willian in the front three for Chelsea and Matic also had his eye on Willian and wherever he went he was trying to get close to him.
"It was different from McTominay - it was a man-marking job.
"Once Chelsea went in front - what were United going to do to get themselves back into this game and you touched into it on commentary - the response came from nothing.
"Alexis Sanchez was involved, Lukaku was involved - who I thought was excellent for United, he got the goal and once that ball was put through to him - he did brilliantly to hold Alonso off and it was just a pass into the net so that's how they got themselves back into the game," he added.
Hazard was substituted with 15 minutes to go and Kilbane was surprised Conte didn't give him different instructions after he was previously man-marked by Ander Herrera.
"I was so surprised that during the game that Antonio Conte didn't say to Hazard 'If they do a man-marking job on you today - take whoever it is, that midfield player - away from the central areas, their own comfort zones'.
"If McTominay picks the ball up centrally in possession - he's going to be quite comfortable but if you take him away and say force McTominay to play as a left-back or force McTominay to play as a right-back - go stand in an area where you might not necessarily have an influence on the game from our point of view but you're taking one of Man United's away from it.
"Pat Nevin had spoke about that last year when he came on to talk about the Ander Herera man-marking - I don't know why he didn't do it but he didn't!"
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