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| CITY DEJECTED after loss pic: DAILY MAIL |
A
bolt from the blue by Serbian defender Branislav Ivanovic gave his Chelsea side
all three points in the title race against rivals Manchester City and in doing
so, inflicted the first home loss on the Citizens in the league this season. The
London Blues out played, out muscled the home side and saw Jose Mourinho get
his tactics absolutely spot on in the big game at the Etihad Stadium on Monday.
The
sides meet each other twice in quick succession this month as they face off in
the FA Cup in a couple of weeks time at the Etihad and so this was a chance to get an early blow in on their
opponents, but importantly the league was the main focus at this moment in
time.
The
Home side had Chelsea in trouble in the opening 20 seconds of play after David
Silva had an effort blocked in the area and saw Petr Cech kick the ball out of
play to try and get his back line sorted.
Alvaro
Negredo managed to get the other side of Gary Cahill in the area, but his
finish was blazed over and wasn`t what you expected from the Spanish striker. City cut out another
fantastic chance to take the lead in the match, when link up play between David
Silva and Yaya Toure seen the Ivorian midfielder play a ball out wide to
Aleksander Kolorov, who then whipped in a great ball across the face of goals
and Toure was just inches away from connecting to give City the lead.
Toure
had another effort go close as this time Spanish duo of Silva and Jesus Navas,
seen the wide-man Navas play the ball out to Toure and his shot from outside
the area, curled just over Cech and clear the bar for a goal kick.
More
play down the right hand side, saw Navas once again link up with Toure in
midfield and the bustling Toure stayed on his feet to play a ball back to the 5
yard box for Silva and the Spanish wizard just couldn`t divert his effort on
target, as he watched the ball spin away by the post and let Chelsea off once
more.
City
wasn`t making the most of their chances and when Edin Dzeko saw his curling
effort go wide, you felt these misses was going to come back and haunt the home
side in the end. Silva tried a acrobatic attempt on goal but it went for a
corner, after Chelsea`s defense was standing their ground.
The
West London side was then starting to get into the game more after they weathered
the opening 25 minutes of play by the home side.
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| Ivanovic strikes for CHELSEA pic:TheGuardian |
Chelsea
had their first shot of the game in the 26th minute, when a sloppy ball by
Kolorov saw David Luiz intercept the ball and seen Chelsea roam forward,
leading to them on a 4 on 1 attack. Vincent Kompany had to race back to help
out and seen Ramirez have a shot on goal well saved by Joe Hart in the City net
with the rebound falling to Willian who tried an overhead kick and got it badly
wrong leading to the ball ending up in the stands.
In
the 35th minute , Chelsea broke the deadlock through Branislav Ivanovic strike,
after Edin Hazard ball into the City penalty area saw Ramirez shot blocked by Kompany after the
Belgian defender rolled into the shot and saw the ball come out to Ivanovic,
whose strike bounced just before Hart and evaded him to find the far corner for
1-0.
The
Blues tried to strike back, when Navas hit his shot into the ground but saw it
collected easily by Cech and the Blues struggle to find hit the target. Edin Dzeko
had another shot go off target for the home side as he was unable to test Cech,
while the defense for the London side looked a tough nut to crack.
Chelsea
nearly made it 2-0 when Hazard ran into the area and a diagonal ball across
goals found Samuel E`to running in to the area and his strike struck the goal
post and went out of play, Half time came and seen Chelsea looking the better side
as the half ended.
City
looked to try and find the elusive goal to level the match and saw Dzeko mistimed
a header that went wide, as the striker seemed to have lost his shooting boots
again. Toure saw another chance go begging for the home side, when Navas ball
into the area was laid off by Dzeko and the midfielder`s snap shot went just past
the post by inches and left City feeling frustrated, as they were unable to
find the target.
Nemanja
Matic then had a shot strike the woodwork again for Chelsea, with the away side
looking more threatening going forward than that of City. Manuel Pellegrini then made a change taking Negredo
off and replacing him with Stefan Jovetic, as he looked to inject some pace
upfront into his side as they were lacking any type of quickness at all in the
game with Chelsea dominating the midfielder battle.
Gary
Cahill then had a header strike the post from a corner kick as it was the third
time the post had come to City`s rescue, with Joe Hart beaten by the header. City had another chance
go begging when a little flick over the defense by Navas, seen Pablo Zabaleta
get onto it and his pass went to Dzeko who saw the Bosnian yet again fail to
hit the target, Jovetic then played the ball back into the danger area before
the defense cleared the danger and it was becoming a trend in the game now for
the home side.
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| Hazard gallops past the City defense: pic: theDailymail |
The
home side pressing for a goal and was starting to looking desperate now and
when Kolorov put a fizzing box into the area it was cut out by Gary Cahill, who
nearly turned the ball into his own net from it, but luckily for him it struck
the outside of the post and out for a corner kick. Chelsea did attack, but all
the running seemed to come from Edin Hazard who gave the defense a torrid time
all game as they were unable to contain the Belgian maestro.
City
tested Cech with a free kick by David Silva, but saw the Chelsea keeper make a
great stop to push the ball over the bar for a corner as he had another chance
minutes later, when a low cross driven into the area saw him running in to put
it wide of the target and seen the home fans tearing their hair out at the
chances they were failing to convert. Matija Nastatic was lucky to be on the field after he brought a Chelsea man down just over half way and looked to be last man, but referee Mike Dean adjudged the Defender not to be and shown him a yellow card on what was a bad night for the City defender.
Despite
all the chances the home side created, Chelsea always looked to be in control of
the match and Mourinho`s tactical play and stubborn defense shown that they
could deal with all City threw had to throw at them and deep into injury time,
Jovetic who was one of the few bright spark for the home side, saw his curling
effort almost deceive Cech, but the Czech keeper made another good stop to keep
City at bay and deny them a late equaliser.
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| Mourinho celebrates victory Mirror.co.uk |
The
final whistle blew and saw Jose Mourinho celebrate the win on the touchline with
his coaching staff and saw the Chelsea players celebrate the victory too, where
City will look back at the chances they created and think if only half of them
had been on target. That the home side may have possibly got a draw in the
match, but as it was, Chelsea moved level with Manchester City on 53 points,
stay third due to City`s superior goal difference which is 17 more than Chelsea
and kept them in Second position a point behind leaders Arsenal on 54.
Taken from :MCFC.co.uk
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