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| Man City 1-1 Chelsea |
In an intriguing game at the Etihad stadium, Manchester City failed to record a win for the third league game in a row, but did manage to take a point off title favourites Chelsea. However, that was not the main story behind the game, which brought up a lot of talking points, which I will look at.
First off, Frank Lampard's equaliser for Manchester City. That in itself is a bizarre sentence, but for it to come against Chelsea is Hollywood-esque. A player scoring his first goal against the team who he became a legend at after scoring 211 goals in a 12 year spell at is something that the writers of Rocky might scoff at for being a little bit far-fetched. Lampard himself looked devastated to have scored, despite it being the equaliser in a huge game. This brought up the tiresome discussion of players celebrating against their old teams, which, frankly, is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Many believed that Lampard's contribution at Man City wouldn't be particularly big and I was in that bracket, but now even if he does nothing else this spell will be remembered for that goal. It was a classic Lampard goal, arriving late in the box to latch onto a cut back before sliding a volley home, cancelling out André Schürrle's 71st minute opener.
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| Frank Lampard scored for Manchester City against his former club Chelsea |
What surprised me most from this game was Chelsea's inability to see out a game that it appeared they had won in predictable fashion and indeed this seems to be their only weakness at the moment - they are leaking a lot more goals than is typical of a Mourinho side. After the controversy surrounding his defensive tactics last season, Mourinho's men have leaked silly goals so far this season. However, with Diego Costa's undeniable quality up front, they have a ruthless edge that they have lacked since Didier Drogba's prime, which makes them capable of winning any game. It is still likely that Mourinho will bemoan the lack of defensive solidity that would have won them this game comfortably.
Pablo Zabaleta received what could be perceived as a harsh red card with less than half an hour to go, after receiving two soft bookings, however he must take a large portion of the blame, as referee Mike Dean set the tone early on with a plethora of cards which it must be said he was mostly consistent with. Zabaleta rushed in to tackle Costa, whom he had had a battle with all day, tripping him up and got his marching orders. Shortly after, Chelsea made that extra man pay and Zabaleta must be held at least partially responsible as with him on the pitch, City had a much better chance of winning it.
Finally, I'd like to talk about a few notable players that didn't make the headlines. James Milner's performance was absolutely superb and though he is often a much maligned player (who I have to admit has only recently won me over) he shows why he is a player at a top 4 team in the big games. Often his work rate is mentioned but little is said of his technical ability, which is on par with many top players. He is an intelligent player who creates space and uses it well with his incisive passing, accurate crossing and decent finishing. He was outstanding in every position he played, which included the very unnatural position of left-back, but he did what was asked of him. On the other side of the spectrum, Yaya Toure has so far struggled to impact games this season, despite being City's top scorer last season. He again failed to impose himself on Chelsea's midfield, but this may have been down to the impervious Nemanja Matic, who again impressed at the base of the midfield. Matic broke down innumerous City attacks and used the ball intelligently which helped Chelsea to nullify the midfield threat which City possess, except for one notable time.
Making his debut for City was Eliaquim Mangala, who looked like a top-drawer centre-half. Mangala is a towering defender with pace and strength in abundance, but reads the game well and aims to defend on the front foot, much like his partner Kompany. He helped to nullify the threat of Diego Costa who didn't get much of a sniff until he hit the post late on with a snapshot from the edge of the box. Despite not scoring, Costa was a constant thorn in the side of City, pulling out wide and battling with Zabaleta, eventually culminating in a red card which could have won Chelsea the game. Down the middle, however, he had little joy due to the performance of Mangala and Kompany.
All in all, Chelsea will be disappointed not to have held out for three points which would have put them five points clear at this early stage, but they are still clear favorites at this point. Man City will take heart from a good performance but need to get their creative players in better positions or they may struggle to create chances against bigger teams. Defensively they look solid, so they now need to refind their scoring form of early last season.
Article contributed by: Elliott Griffiths
Twitter: @ElliottBCFC
