City run riot over lacklustre Chelsea
LONDON: Chelsea’s poor start to the Premier League season continued with a 3-0 thumping by Manchester City yesterday to leave Jose Mourinho’s misfiring champions with one point from their opening two games.
Sergio Aguero’s superb finish gave City a deserved 31stminute lead and Vincent Kompany’s second goal in two games sealed the points for Manuel Pellegrini’s side before Fernandinho completed the rout.
Cheers rang around the Etihad Stadium as City put down an ominous marker, moving top of the table on goal difference with a maximum six-point haul and six unanswered goals.
City, the 2014 champions, are five points above Chelsea having trailed the London club for the whole of last season before finishing runners-up.
In the earlier game Damien Delaney’s own goal allowed Arsenal to belatedly kickstart their Premier League season with a 2-1 away victory in the London derby against Crystal Palace.
Palace had recovered from an early mauling by a fired-up Arsenal and had started the second half brightly only for Irishman Delaney to turn Alexis Sanchez’s downward header into his own net after 55 minutes.
Arsenal, in need of a quick response after being beaten 2-0 at home by West Ham United on the opening weekend of the season, dominated the early exchanges and deservedly took the lead with Olivier Giroud’s 16th-minute volley.
The hosts equalised against the run of play 12 minutes later when Joel Ward drilled home a low shot from outside the area.
Palace struck the woodwork through new signing Conor Wickham shortly after the break but once Arsenal went back in front they assumed control and limited Palace to a late flurry.
Two consecutive capital defeats for Arsenal would have dealt a huge blow to their preseason optimism but, despite not playing with any real fluency they survived a real test of their resolve at a noisy Selhurst Park.
“I’m very pleased with the three points. If we had gone two games and zero points it would be absolutely difficult and we knew this would be a tricky one,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger told the BBC.
“Last week we had a bit of a stroll and thought we would win the game.
“Today we played real Premier League football from the first minute to the last.” – Reuters