On Saturday afternoon, Etihad Stadium played host to the second rematch of last season’s Champions League final. Manchester City came into this game with eleven straight wins in the Premier League, having the chance to do the double over last year’s European champions Chelsea in the league and turn the three horse race for the English league crown into a two horse race.
Neither of the teams made changes to their usual formations. As Riyad Mahrez travelled to the African Cup of Nations to represent Algeria, Raheem Sterling filled in for him. Chelsea losing Andreas Christensen to Covid, Edouard Mendy unable to represent Senegal at the African Cup of Nations because of the virus and after playing in Thursday’s League Cup clash with Spurs, while Mason Mount, Timo Werner, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Jorginho were all sidelined saw Kepa Arrizabalaga, Malang Sarr, Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic and Mateo Kovacic named in the starting line-up by Thomas Tuchel.
With Chelsea obliged to win in order to reduce the ten point gap between them and the defending champions, but unable to take control, the game started with a tempo that didn’t match the hype.
With City pressing high like always and Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva able to control Chelsea’s main agents involved in building from the back, Mateo Kovacic and N’Golo Kanté, Chelsea’s attempts at conjuring organised attacks and pushing City into their own half constantly failed. The physical capabilities of City’s full-backs also allowed them to push high and participate in the high press, which dismantled Chelsea’s wider options of playing stable and forward passes.
On a few occasions, Chelsea appeared to break City’s press and find openings. By managing to get the ball to Pulisic and Ziyech with a lot of space to attack, expecting them to combine their physical and technical abilities with Romelu Lukaku’s qualities, although both Pulisic and Ziyech failed to do.
Easily recycling the long balls born from Chelsea’s discouraged attempts at building from the back, City took complete control of the game. With the absence of Mahrez, Sterling came in for him and took up a narrower position, enabling him to run into the spaces that false nine Phil Foden cleared, while also allowing Kyle Walker to play wider and overlap. This seem like the only significant change from their usual structure as they beat Chelsea’s seven-man press repeatedly.
Rodri was the main hub of City’s passing in their own half, sometimes dropping between the centre backs splitting wide, which allowed the likes of De Bruyne, Silva and Foden to come deeper and get involved with the build-up.
Even though City were able to beat Chelsea’s press, Chelsea weren’t pushovers. They accepted defending in a low block early on and managed quite nicely.
With Antonio Rüdiger playing at the right of the three-man Chelsea defence, on the opposite side to usual, collaborating with Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta and work horse Kanté, Chelsea restricted the creativity of the very dangerous Jack Grealish-João Cancelo-De Bruyne triangle.
City’s press created the first half’s biggest chance for them: Grealish failing to score after an intercepted Kovacic pass ended up in front of him, one-on-one against Kepa. An excellent stop by the Spanish goalkeeper saw the first half end scoreless, with Chelsea managing no shots or touches in the opposition box.
Right at the start of the second half, City got caught cold and gave Chelsea their only significant chance of the game. Kovacic got loose from City’s midfield and played a perfect through ball to Lukaku, who tried and failed to find the far corner – Ederson doing brilliantly.
The game didn’t have a lot of entertainment to offer, with both teams unable to create clear-cut chances. In the 69th minute, Tuchel decided to bring on Werner and Hudson-Odoi, replacing poorly performing the duo of Pulisic and Ziyech. This saw Chelsea try to create a different flow behind the star man Lukaku, choosing athleticism over technique, essentially admitting that his team couldn’t break the press of Manchester City.
A minute later, the stalemate was broken. De Bruyne dropped into the spaces between Chelsea’s midfield and defence as he did throughout, received a ball from Cancelo, beat Kanté on the half turn and dribbled for 20 yards, before gloriously scoring his sixth Premier League goal of the season from right outside Chelsea’s box.
With both teams unable to create anything significant for the remainder of the match, Tuchel made another move in the 81st minute, taking off Marcos Alonso for Mason Mount and turning Chelsea’s shape into an unfamiliar 4-2-3-1.
Being able to match with Chelsea’s 4-2-3-1 man-to-man, City saw out the game without any significant dangers at their end and won their twelfth straight game in the Premier League. With Chelsea reject De Bruyne the match winner, claiming the Man of the Match award, the Citizens look like champions already. Their nearest pursuer being their bitter rivals Liverpool, with a fourteen point gap to close, albeit with two games in hand, Pep Guardiola has one hand on the Premier League trophy again.
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