Chelsea look old and Mexico has a better young forward than the U.S.

OK so I've been following Manchester United in a few of their preseason games because they made a nice little trip through the states playing MLS teams as well as the MLS All-Stars.

Yesterday Man U essentially opened the English Premier League season with a 3-1 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield - a game between the previous season's league champs and FA Cup winners, or if one team won the double as Chelsea did last season the previous season's league runner's up in this case Man U.

Anyway a couple of side notes I wanted to address.

Michael Essien is finally back and healthy, and he looked very good for Chelsea playing the role that Michael Ballack had assumed before Chelsea did not re-sign him after last season. By the way can we put out an APB for Ballack, the only news I had heard about him in recent weeks since his ankle injury in the FA Cup final that ruled him out of the World Cup was that he wanted to get his captaincy back for the German team when he was fit. I had to dig deep into research to find out he had decided to return to the club that made him famous, Bayer Leverkusen in the German Bundesliga.

I also have to say that I think Mexico's Javier Hernandez or Chicharito as it says on the back of his shirt meaning "Little Green Pea," right now is a better forward prospect than Jozy Altidore, which does not bode well for the U.S. as it tries to hold onto its dominance in the CONCALF region. Chicharito has been marvelous in his brief preseason career with Man U scoring a couple of goals in the team's American expedition, including one in the MLS All-Star game, and yesterday he scored the second goal vs. Chelsea, albeit an awkward one. He is fast on the ball, confident, and from what I've seen of him during the World Cup and 3-4 games with Man U is that he has a much better work rate than Jozy, something I have always been critical of him for. I think Chicharito is going to get a lot of playing time at Man U right away, he looks to be the second or third choice forward on this team already. Meanwhile Jozy, about a year and a half younger than Hernandez, is struggling to latch onto a club in Europe. His first season after Villarreal bought him he was loaned twice. Last year he had somewhat of a disappointing spell with Hull City in the EPL, and now he may finally play with Villarreal in La Liga as he did score against the very good team from Turkey in Besiktas. Only time will tell who will have a better career, but right now Chicharito has looks to have the inside track to greatness.

My last point and what I really want to talk about is that Chelsea are an aging team, and I think this could be the last hurrah for many of these players. It was very surprising to me that they made no major moves in the summer transfer window, in fact their biggest buy was former Liverpool player Yossi Benayoun - a player brought into essentially replace Joe Cole.

Look at the core nucleus of Chelsea and you will see a club that is pretty old: John Terry 30 in December, Didier Drogba is 32, Nicolas Anelka is 31, Frank Lampard is 32, Florent Malouda is 30, Ashley Cole will be 30 in December, Ricardo Carvalho is 32, Michael Essien is 28 and is coming off a bad knee injury.

Now you may not think 30 is that old for an athlete, but as I mentioned in a recent post 27 is considered the prime year in a soccer player's career. Consider most top flight players start playing professionally between 18-20, and that once they reach first-team action they play a nearly 10-month long season. You thought MLB had a long year, these guys are going at it through tough European winters, 40-game league seasons, whatever domestic tournaments their clubs are playing in, whatever European tournaments their clubs are playing in, and then they have international duty. Then you maybe have June and July to relax, if your team is not touring a country like many clubs did this summer, and then you're right back at it. The schedule is brutally grueling.

Chelsea to me are beginning to look like a team that are showing its age. They've lost four straight preseason games, including the only one that really mattered, yesterday's community shield, and they have no real reinforcements on the way.

Now did they look terrible yesterday? No, but Manchester United looked better and more youthful. Consider Man U have players that are entering their prime looking better and better each season, guys like Wayne Rooney, Nani, Antonio Valencia, Chicharito, Darren Fletcher, and two players that I think are going to make a big splash this season the Brazilian twins Rafael and Fabio. Are there players getting old on Man U as well? Yes, Paul Scholes is no spring chicken at nearly 36, but he gave up playing international football at an early age. Ryan Giggs is also nearly 37, Edwin Van Der Sar is 40, Rio Ferdinand is 32, Park Ji-Sung and Patrice Evra are each 29. But from what I can tell the Man U youth players are better than Chelsea's. The Red Devils have players like Darren Gibson and Federico Macheda coming through the ranks making splashes, while I can't name one Chelsea youngster that has done the same.

I think Chelsea will continue to compete for the EPL title this year, but I don't see how this team as currently constituted competes for what Roman Abramovich has desired most since Jose Mourinho left - a Champions League title. The one thing they do have are Abramovich's deep pockets to go make some good buys, but the former Russian oil tycoon is no longer the biggest fish in the sea with Manchester City's owners far dwarfing Abramovich's fortune and Liverpool looking now to become the richest team in the world with a Chinese businessman looking to buy the club.

So again I say this might be the last rodeo ride for guys like Terry and Lampard to get something done before this team is for all intents and purposes blowed up (Michael Holley quote).