[El Car]

I don't see any green shoots of recovery from either of these sides yet. Chelsea continue to be very poor (very early days for Hiddink though) and United ineffectual. Both teams have collections of assorted good players - not many between them I would describe as great players though - but they don't coalesce into particularly good teams. They lack a heart and soul to drive them, and - fundamental to their problems in my opinion - are left relying on these two to provide that:



Maybe these guys would have been considered top players 5 years ago, but Rooney and Terry have both been in decline for the past several years, and their respective clubs have been too scared or too short-sighted in their transfer dealings to drop them from the first team picture. All the more mind-boggling that they keep hold of them when you look at their undeservedly massive salaries. 

LvG seems to know his time is up but is hanging on to be sacked so he can claim a bigger bounty, and Chelsea's appointment of an 'interim' manager means they probably won't start to rebuild until summer. But the bottom line is both clubs need to drastically overhaul their approach to transfers and squad building more than their managers if they want to regain any sort of consistent success.