Manchester City edged past Chelsea at Etihad Stadium on Saturday by a margin of 2-1. After this defeat, Chelsea are 11 points behind the League leader, Liverpool. Leicester City won their respective match against Brighton and Hove Albion and now they cemented their position at second place in this season. Frank Lampard’s side is failing to win the match against the top six sides. That would certainly be a concern for the manager.
The Story Of The Game That Manchester City Won
Chelsea will face Valencia on Wednesday in an important match of the Champions League. The match will certainly be a decider in terms of qualification for the next round.
Manchester City’s manager Pep Guardiola will be eyeing to reduce the gap between them and Liverpool in the upcoming days. Liverpool also won their respective match against Crystal Palace on Saturday. So, they are still nine points behind Liverpool at this point in time.
Surprisingly, Mason Mount was excluded from the Chelsea side and Frank Lampard fielded his side with a formation of 4-3-3. There were three holding midfielders in the side of Chelsea on Saturday against Manchester City. Frank Lampard wished to take a cautious approach against the strong Manchester City side. In these kinds of big matches, the domination in the midfield takes a very important role in terms of getting an early advantage in the match.
Chelsea took an early lead in the match when Mateo Kovacic provided a brilliant ball towards N’Golo Kante. N’Golo Kante placed the ball perfectly into the Goal. Ederson tried to narrow the angle. However, he was not successful in that attempt and Chelsea got the early advantage in the match at the 21st minute of the match. Chelsea was dominating the match from the very first minute and the lead was deserving.
What Next For The Premier League Giants?
However, after getting the goal Chelsea was involved in passing the ball in the midfield more. That caused a big problem for them. Jorginho tried to pass the ball towards Tammy Abraham. The ball did not reach towards Tammy Abraham and Manchester City equalised utilising that opportunity. Kevin De Bruyne’s shot went towards goal with a deflection of Kurt Zouma. Kepa Arrizabalaga went in the right direction. However, the ball went to the other direction with deflection.
Riyad Mahrez doubled the lead for Manchester City as he scored the second goal for the home team in the 37th minute of the match. The first half ended with a scoreline of 2-1 in favour of Manchester City at Etihad Stadium. In the second half of the match, Frank Lampard introduced Reece James, Mason Mount and Michy Batshuyai to change the course of the match.
However, Chelsea was not able to perform well in the second half of the match. Kepa Arrizabalaga made a mistake and passed the ball directly into the feet of Sergio Aguero. However, Aguero’s shot hit the post and Chelsea got a lifetime. Even at the stoppage time, Raheem Sterling’s goal was ruled out using VAR. The match ended with a scoreline of 2-1 in favour of Manchester City and Frank Lampard would have to go back to the blackboard again to check the status of the team.
