Chelsea beat Manchester United in a titanic encounter at Stamford Bridge 2-1 with the home side coming from behind to defeat the league leaders tonight.
United had the best of the first half with Wayne Rooney opening for the visitors but a near faultless second half by the Blues saw the home side equalise through centre-back David Luiz and Frank Lampard smashing home a penalty.
United stay top 12 points ahead of Chelsea clear in fourth.
A sweeping move on four minutes saw Chelsea get down United’s right flank. Anelka sent over a low daisy-cutter which the in-running Malouda could only shoot straight at Van Der Sar.
United were unchanged from their previous match while Chelsea continued to leave Drogba on the bench.
John Terry saw his header from an out-swinging corner go just over the visitors’ crossbar on 12 minutes.
Ramires picked up a yellow card for a late challenge on Michael Carrick on 13 minutes.
United has a great chance to score on 16 minutes when Chelsea’s right flank was exposed and Patrick Evra saw his byline cross flash across the Chelsea goal with no United in place to finish it off.
Rooney mistimed a header from a brilliant left wing cross by Nani four minutes later.
But on 30 minutes United’s pressure paid off and the striker drove home the perfect low drive from 20 yards past a hapless Petr Cech’s despairing right sided dive.
Rooney took full advantage of Chelsea ball-watching with Ivanovic the main culprit.
United last won at Stamford Bridge in April 2002.
Excellent wing play by Malouda saw the French man send across a fine left wing cross but Torres was ponderous and failed to get close to the ball.
Van der Sar, 40, produced a fine triple save five minutes from time half-time to deny Ivanovic taking advantage of an excellent Lampard free-kick.
Lampard started the second half as he finished the first with a fine long-range free-kick but Van der Sar was again equal to the task.
But on 55 minutes the home side equalised - up stepped David Luiz to get on the end of an Anelka flick and ram the ball home with a smart right-footer from 10 yards out.
Drogba entered the fray on 60 minutes at the expense of Anelka.
Rooney had the ball in the back of the Chelsea net on 63 minutes but the hit man was offside.
United rang the changes on 70 minutes replacing Paul Scholes with Ryan Giggs while Malouda was replaced by Yury Zhirkov
The Ivory Coast striker was soon in the action, seeing a long-range free-kick inch over United’s crossbar on 73 minutes.
Rooney forced a point blank save out of Cech two minutes later as both sides searched for the winner.
A quick breakaway saw Chelsea inch into United penalty area and Chris Smalling upended Zhirkov with 12 minutes remaining to concede the spot kick.
Lampard placed the ball on the spot and blasted the ball high in to the centre of the goal to complete the turnaround.
David Luiz, already with a yellow card and guilty of a few needless fouls was replaced by Jose Bosingwa two minutes later. Fabio was also brought on for Evra.
Zhirkov almost doubled the lead with a blistering shot on 81 minutes which deflected first of Vidic and then the post as Chelsea piled on the pressure.
Vidic compounded the miserable night by conceded another yellow and sent off as the whistle blew and United lost only their second league game of the season.
TEAMS:
1 Petr Cech
2 Branislav Ivanovic
4 David Luiz
26 John Terry (c)
3 Ashley Cole
7 Ramires
5 Michael Essien
8 Frank Lampard
15 Florent Malouda
39 Nicolas Anelka
9 Fernando Torres
Subs: 22 Ross Turnbull, 17 Jose Bosingwa, 18 Yury Zhirkov, 19 Paulo Ferreira, 46 Josh McEachran, 21 Salomon Kalou, 11 Didier Drogba.
Man United are expected to start in the following 4-4-1-1 formation:
Van der Sar; O'Shea, Smalling, Vidic (c), Evra; Fletcher, Carrick, Scholes, Nani; Rooney; Hernandez.
Subs: Kuszczak, Rafael, Fabio, Brown, Gibson, Giggs, Berbatov.
The referee is Martin Atkinson