Man City, Leicester show title credentials
FOOTBALL
LONDON: Manchester City made an emphatic statement about its English Premier League title intentions with a superb 31 victory at Chelsea yesterday at the end of what has been a difficult week for Pep Guardiola’s contenders.
City’s win followed a fine 21 win for Leicester City at Newcastle that also maintained the Foxes’ own title push as they moved to third on the table.
Even deprived of half a dozen players because of Covid19 and having yesterday expressed disappointment defender Benjamin Mendy had breached pandemic restrictions, City was back at its fluent best.
Firsthalf goals from Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne, answered only by a stoppagetime consolation from Callum HudsonOdoi, enabled fifthplaced City to move to within four points of leader Liverpool with a game in hand.
It was one of its best performances of an uneven season as it jumped ahead of Chelsea, which now lies eighth in a congested topflight table.
‘‘The way we won leagues and titles and other things is the way we played today,’’ City manager Pep Guardiola said.
‘‘The tempo we have missed in the past, today we recovered it. The players were excellent in every way especially with the ball.
‘‘We cannot play like other teams. We have to play in our rhythm and attack in the right moment. We won titles in that way, more patient. We missed a bit of this tempo and today we had it.’’
Chelsea manager Lampard said the first half showed how far Chelsea still had to go in its development.
‘‘Today was painful in the first half in football terms because their level of play show where we need to aspire to,’’ he said. ‘‘They punished us.’’
The match was over 10 minutes before halftime after Foden set up Gundogan for the opener on 18 minutes and the England man then scored the second soon after from an assist by the irrepressible De Bruyne.
The Belgian powerhouse then put the game out of Chelsea’s reach with the third 11 minutes before the break and Guardiola’s men cruised through the second half before HudsonOdoi’s goal.
Leicester’s hero was Youri Tielemans, who scored a superb 72ndminute goal to add to James Maddison’s 55thminute opener as the Foxes won thanks to a couple of rare pieces of quality in an otherwise ordinary game on wintry Tyneside.
Newcastle briefly gave itself hope when substitute Andy Carroll scored his first goal for the club in more than 10 years as time ran down, but it was too little, too late.
Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers was not allowing himself or anyone to get carried away with the Foxes’ third place.
Asked afterwards if his targets had changed, he said: ‘‘No, it’s still the same. My ambition is to get into Europe again and for us to progress. We want to be a team that year on year can get European football’’.