Chelsea coach’s future in doubt as Aguero leads City to 6-0 rout
This was not so much a victory as an evisceration. This was not so much a defeat as a demolition. This was not so much three points as one very big point being made by the champions. If Liverpool, or Tottenham Hotspur, are to finish ahead of Manchester City it will be some exceptional achievement.
City returned to the top of the Premier League by destroying Chelsea. They humiliated them and their head coach Maurizio Sarri – and that is dangerous territory for a club with Chelsea’s ambition and, even more so, expectation.
Sergio Aguero scored his 11th hat-trick to draw level with Alan Shearer’s Premier League record as City made it nine points and 11 goals in three games in a week.
They brushed aside Arsenal and Everton, but this was the next level; one of the best, Pep Guardiola said, since he has been at the club.
It was also a result that kept Chelsea out of the top four – and actually dropped them down to sixth – for the first time this season, but it also raises serious questions over where they are heading and whether Sarri will continue after this campaign.
Whatever the excuses, the mitigation, the understandable arguments over giving Sarri time – and the players – to execute his precise brand of football, big teams do not get taken apart like this. No matter how good City were, and they were very, very good. It was beautiful.
Guardiola’s tutoring of City also took time, and maybe Chelsea will look to do that, but if they do, it will be the first time in the history of Roman Abramovich’s ownership.
Sarri has to get them back in that top four but looked bereft. The hangdog Italian chewed cigarette butts on the touchline, as usual, but looked like he was about to be spat out and walked straight past Guardiola at the final whistle, lost in his thoughts, missing the handshake of his friend. It was that traumatic.
This was Chelsea’s biggest defeat in the Abramovich era, and their biggest since 1991. Aguero now has 11 league goals in 2019 – which is more than half the teams in the Premier League have registered.
It was his second successive hattrick in home games, and, once again, he departed to a standing ovation. “He’s a life legend, an absolute goal machine,” said team-mate Oleksandr Zinchenko. Aguero is. The bigger picture in terms of the title race is City emphatically stating their case and, importantly, significantly enhancing their goal difference by doing so. Liverpool have a game in hand – that game being away to Manchester United a week on Sunday – and can go three points clear again, but City now have a 10-goal advantage.
Four goals arrived in the first half. Or, rather, the first half of a first half in which it felt like only Eden Hazard and Gonzalo Higuain for Chelsea had the stomach for the fight. The first goal summed that up. Jorginho, badly struggling at the base of the midfield, needlessly fouled Kevin De Bruyne, who took a quick free kick. Neither Hazard nor, even more so, Marcos Alonso was alert to the danger and Bernardo Silva ran in from the touchline to cross low. David Luiz deflected the ball out but only as far as the onrushing Raheem Sterling.
There was then an astonishing miss by Aguero who somehow sidefooted wide from just two yards out, with the goal beckoning, but he quickly made amends. He took possession from Zinchenko, weighed up the shot and sent a superb curling 25-yard effort that Kepa Arrizabalaga got a hand to before it tore past.
Chelsea were reeling and unravelled when Zinchenko scooped the ball into the penalty area with Luiz heading it out. For some reason, Ross Barkley headed it back towards his own goal, playing Aguero onside and, the striker stole in to steer a low shot past Arrizabalaga.
When they struck again, once more Chelsea were at fault with no pressure as Aguero sent the ball out wide to Sterling, who returned it to the striker with both Luiz and Antonio Rudiger inexplicably standing off before the German managed to intercept. But the ball only ran out to Ilkay Gundogan, who struck a low first-time shot into the corner of the goal.
Chelsea created two first-half chances, their only opportunities, with Ederson denying Pedro and Higuain, but the game was up, and it was only a question of how many for City. It would be two more – after Aguero first went close with a header against the crossbar before he claimed his hat-trick, his 15th overall for City. It came when Cesar Azpilicueta was undone by Sterling, bringing down the winger and allowing Aguero to roll the penalty low into the corner.
David Silva, then came on and delivered the pass of the match as he released Zinchenko, who cut the ball back. It fell to Sterling, who finished unerringly.