CHELSEA LAID DOWN AND CITY STEPPED RIGHT OVER THEM
LAST season Chelsea came to Manchester City and won 3-1. It was a deeply edgy, competitive game that ended with City reduced to nine men. Sergio Aguero and the Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho are not known for reckless behaviour but both were sent off late for acts of violence.
Back then, the result and the nature of the game said everything about where both teams were under new managers.
Chelsea were rejuvenated, driven forward by Antonio Conte. The Italian had taken hold of Jose Mourinho’s ailing team and moulded it in his own dynamic image.
City, meanwhile, were struggling desperately to handle the expectation that automatically came with being a Pep Guardiola team. Certainly they couldn’t handle Chelsea that day.
Only 15 months on, this was different, desperately different. When Guardiola looked at his team’s final 10 Premier League fixtures, he would have seen this one as an obstacle. It didn’t turn out that way. Chelsea, increasingly hampered by their manager’s idiosyncratic behaviour, lay down and City just stepped right over them. This was a dreadful day for Chelsea. If it was not as dismal as that experienced by Arsenal at Brighton, it runs it close. We would not excuse Arsene Wenger this so we should not excuse Conte either.
This was Conte’s fault, no doubt about it. Sometimes teams simply underperform. But here Chelsea never had a chance once Conte picked a team without a centre forward, played his best player — Eden Hazard — out of position and sent his players out to sit in their own half and hope.
Guardiola’s team simply beat what was placed in front of them here. It wasn’t exciting but sometimes it can be tough when only one team want to play. It was actually Conte — the losing manager — who determined how this one would end.
Currently the Chelsea boss has the look of a man who knows he will go the way of so many others who have passed before him at Chelsea, namely out of the door. He has become so wrapped up in the politics of his football club that his thinking appears totally muddled.
In the haze of his confused mind, the decisions made by Conte maybe appeared justifiable. But they were not. If he thinks it is OK to pick teams in order to make a point to the wider world about the strength or otherwise of his squad then he is quite wrong.
Chelsea went into this game knowing that if last weekend’s defeat at Manchester United was followed by another one, they would lose serious ground in the contest for the top four.
But Conte did not seem to appreciate this. His team were not remotely competitive and he could not expect them to be. Other clubs have tried to played this way against City and all have been picked off.
And if clubs like Newcastle wish to play like this then perhaps they can justify it. Conte and Chelsea cannot. They are the champions of England, after all.
Against Barcelona at Stamford Bridge last month in the Champions League, Chelsea were happy at times to allow their opponents to have possession. But Conte’s players pressed hard that night and ran hard and sprang forward whenever they could. By the time they took the lead, they had struck the post twice.
This was not like that. Here, with their energy and optimism drained from them by Conte’s tactics, Chelsea’s players ambled through the motions. When they learn that City racked up the most number of passes in a Premier League game since people started counting these things 16 years ago, they should be thoroughly embarrassed.
Where Chelsea go from here is anybody’s guess. They are still in the FA Cup and have their Champions League second leg at Barcelona to look towards but how Conte expects the likes of Hazard, Willian and Cesc Fabregas to remain motivated maybe only he will know.
Footballers are not stupid and when they suspect a manager is preparing for the end of his time it’s never long before their performances reflect that.
At Old Trafford the previous Sunday, Chelsea were more than decent for 45 minutes and still lost. That can happen. Here they were accepting from the very first whistle and that made for a dreary, predictable afternoon’s football.
Guardiola and City march on and good luck to them. Conte and his team of champions, meanwhile, continue to peddle backwards. What a strange and dispiriting sight that has quickly become.