Football: Manchester City destroy Chelsea

It was “not so much a victory as an evisceration”, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. On Sunday, Manchester City destroyed Chelsea: they scored four times in the first 25 minutes, and went on to win 6-0, inflicting the Blues’ heaviest defeat of the Premier League era. City, meanwhile, have won 11 of their past 12 matches in all competitions, and are back at the top of the table; in their past six home games, they have scored an astonishing 33 goals. If Liverpool – who are behind City only on goal difference, with a game in hand – manage to beat them to the title, it will be “an exceptional achievement”.

City produced “one of the finest team performances in Premier League history”, said Henry Winter in The Times. It was not simply “the merciless way” that they kept scoring goal after goal. It was the “sustained excellence” of Pep Guardiola’s players, all over the pitch: Sergio Agüero equalled Alan Shearer’s record of Premier League hat-tricks and Raheem Sterling “twisted defenders into submission”. And the defending was just as impressive. This is a team in which each player understands his place and is “determined to make every touch and move count”. If only the same could be said of Chelsea, said Phil Mcnulty on BBC Sport. They were guilty of the kind of mistakes you wouldn’t expect from schoolboys, “let alone professionals”. For all City’s brilliance, four of their goals came from Chelsea errors. And Jorginho, who is supposed to be the team’s “midfield anchor”, once again looked “so fragile, so easy to freeze out of a game”. It remains a mystery why Maurizio Sarri, the Blues’ manager, favours him over N’golo Kanté, “arguably the best in the world in his position”.

What a “sorry state” this club is in, said Oliver Kay in The Times. True, they are only one point outside the top four, and have a Carabao Cup final to look forward to. But after an impressive start to the season – until early November, they were “playing as well as anyone in the Premier League” – the team have gone backwards. In their three away matches in the league since the start of the year, they have conceded a shocking 12 goals without scoring. Little wonder Sarri has been tipped for the exit, said Rory Smith in The New York Times. When Chelsea have to choose whether or not to fire a manager, they tend to act “as if they had no choice at all”: the Italian is the 13th permanent appointment since Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003. Certainly, the owner has sacked managers for less than this humiliating defeat. Like José Mourinho and Antonio Conte before him, Sarri seems to have lost the faith of the dressing room. “Everybody knows how the story ends; it is not with the players moving on.”