Chelsea made a slightly nervy start to the game, but then settled quickly and were able to go toe-to-toe with the visitors for a brief while. While our possession was mostly inert and seemed to run out of ideas very quickly, we at least looked to be growing in confidence.
And we almost reaped great reward from those beginnings, as João Pedro made the most of a miscontrol, went off-script with a mazy dribble through the middle, and found Marc Cucurella with an excellent through ball. Cucurella’s finish was just as good. Alas, the linesman’s flag went up, and VAR would confirm the offside: Cucurella went just a step too early.
City took control of proceedings after that let-off, but Chelsea were able to sit back and deal with much of their possession relatively comfortably, and even look dangerous on the occasional counter. It was a familiar script for a game involving Man City, but in a way, that was already improvement from our more recent efforts.
Unfortunately, our cohesion would not last beyond the halftime break. City came out with renewed purpose and increased impetus, and would find the game’s opening goal barely five minutes in. Then, another five minutes later, City would double their lead thanks to some wonderful creativity from Rayan Cherki. Amazing what can happen when you don’t just keep taking the safe option of the sideways pass.
Chelsea tried to mount a response, but City were hardly bothered. And then we gifted them a third just for the fun of it.
That took the last vestiges of actual competition out of the occasion.
