Rogers and Palmer give Chelsea 2-0 win over ten-man Man Utd
Chelsea beat Man Utd 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, scoring twice after the interval as Lisandro Martínez was sent off, ending United's recent run in the fixture.
By Harvey Watkins,
Chelsea beat Man Utd 2-0 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, with both goals arriving in the opening 19 minutes of the second half. Morgan Rogers scored in the 50th minute and Cole Palmer added a penalty in the 64th, a minute after Lisandro Martínez had been sent off for a second yellow card.
The result ended a two-match losing run for Chelsea in this fixture and gave them their first win over United since May 2025.
A goalless first half, then two quick goals
The sides went in level at half-time, so everything that separated them came after the interval. Rogers broke the deadlock five minutes after the restart, and for the next quarter of an hour Chelsea held a single-goal lead against a full-strength United side.
The decisive passage came in the space of two minutes. Martínez, who had already been booked, received his second yellow card in the 63rd minute, and Palmer scored from the spot in the 64th. In that short window United went from one goal down with eleven players to two down with ten, with 26 minutes of normal time still to play.
It would be too neat to say the dismissal decided the match. Chelsea were already ahead when it happened, and they had taken the lead on their own terms. But a one-goal advantage against eleven is a very different proposition from a two-goal advantage against ten, and United were unable to score at any point in the remaining time. Chelsea kept a clean sheet.
How it sits against recent meetings
The five previous meetings between the sides had been close and evenly shared:
- 18 Apr 2026: Chelsea 0-1 Man Utd
- 20 Sep 2025: Man Utd 2-1 Chelsea
- 16 May 2025: Chelsea 1-0 Man Utd
- 3 Nov 2024: Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea
- 4 Apr 2024: Chelsea 4-3 Man Utd
Across those games Chelsea won two, United won two and one was drawn. Every one of them was settled by a single goal or ended level, which makes Saturday's 2-0 the widest margin of victory in the last six meetings. It was also only Chelsea's second clean sheet in that run, the other coming in the 1-0 win in May 2025.
United had won the two most recent meetings, including a 1-0 victory on Chelsea's own ground in April. This result reverses that, though it would be stretching a point to call it a shift in the fixture. Chelsea's lead on recent meetings is now three wins to two, which is still a narrow record.
What the result does and does not show
This was Matchday 9 of the Premier League season, and a single result tells only part of a story. The scoreline was emphatic by the standards of this fixture, and Chelsea deserve credit for scoring early in the second half and then making the most of their numerical advantage.
Equally, the timing of the red card means it is hard to know how the final half-hour would have unfolded with eleven against eleven. United had been level at the interval and only one down when Martínez was dismissed. The cleanest reading is that Chelsea earned the lead and the circumstances then helped them extend it.