City remain 5 points behind Chelsea after they left Stamford Bridge with a point from a 1-1 draw on Saturday evening. David Silva scored a poacher’s goal late in the first half to reward The Blues for giving it a go on a tough ground.
Bacary Sagna was picked over Pablo Zabaleta to start in defence, with Clichy out on the left. Despite underperforming last week, Fernando continued in midfield alongside Fernandinho. In the Chelsea team, Cesc Fábregas didn’t make it back in time to play, and Diego Costa was banned for violent conduct in Chelsea’s midweek win over Liverpool.
The first half started very mixed, with Chelsea perhaps edging it despite City having a shot from Navas within 20 seconds of the start. Perhaps the best chance for either side before goals started to go in came from Sergio Agüero, who capitalised on a John Terry mistake to get through on goal, but dragged his shot wide of Courtois’ goal, a mistake which will have disappointed him and which probably shows he’s not yet back to full fitness after his injury.
It took 41 minutes for either team to break the deadlock, and when it happened it came from Chelsea, somewhat against the run of play. Chelsea broke quickly, and after nearly losing the ball Branislav Ivanovic managed to put a diagonal into Eden Hazard at the back post, whose first-time low cross got past Vincent Kompany to Loïc Rémy, who put the ball into the back of the net to put the hosts in front.
That looked like it might be it for the first half, but City managed to grab an equaliser through the magical David Silva, who looked much better than he had in previous games. Navas played a part in the goal, crossing in from the right. Thibaut Courtois was put off by the close vicinity of a jumping Silva, and when he was only able to bat it away to Sergio Agüero. The Argentine volleyed it back first-time, and whilst his shot was going wide, Silva was on hand to slide in and divert the goal home to level the score at half-time.
City came out for the second half with an agenda to win. Whilst they’d been somewhat restrained in the first half, they came out and put a lot more pressure on Chelsea, controlling much of the first 25 minutes of the second half. On 70 minutes Chelsea started to work themselves more into the game again, but City seemed determined to emerge from London with a result, which they got in the end. The highlight of the second half was probably a teary-eyed Frank Lampard coming on to a majority of cheers from all sides of the ground, with a minority of booing from those who think he’s a ‘traitor’.
Whilst the result could (and possibly should) have been better, City can take a lot of heart from that performance. They showed a lot more desire than they have done in the last couple of games, and could easily have emerged from the game with all three points. If one thing is for certain, it’s that not many teams this season will go to The Bridge and do what City did to the league leaders.
