PMB: Chelsea v Man City - talking points

 

 

PMB: Chelsea v Man City - talking points

 

Not been a bad few weeks for the Blues, has it? Five wins from six games, and 19 goals scored on three different fronts. Now comes the seventh match of a hectic month ahead of the two-week break for international fixtures.
We beat Manchester City home and away last season on the way to becoming champions, Antonio Conte becoming the first coach to fashion a league double over former Barcelona and Bayern man Pep Guardiola. The Catalan has yet to coach his team to victory against a Chelsea side in open play (the 2013 UEFA Super Cup ended in a 2-2 draw, with penalties deciding it in Bayern Munich’s favour).
The visitors arrive after their second best Premier League start (after last season) in terms of points, and their most successful when it comes to goal difference, with 21 scored and two conceded.
Chelsea’s task is to staunch the Mancunians’ flow and puncture their armour, much like the historic performance in Madrid this week. It is the sustained intensity of Wednesday’s performance and its drain on his team that will occupy Conte however. For what is potentially a season-defining showdown, it seems unfair that TV scheduling has handed such an advantage to the visitors.
The Blues, who returned from the Spanish capital in the early hours of Thursday and had a light training session later the same morning, will have had just two days’ recovery and preparation time in between demanding fixtures. The Citizens played a day earlier, and at home. A Sunday kick-off would have levelled things up considerably.

Key Stat

Chelsea were the last team to beat Manchester City in the Premier League.

Chelsea inflicted Atletico’s first-ever home defeat (12 matches) to English opposition in UEFA competition and are unbeaten in 10 games over twelve years on Spanish soil. In 2007, the Blues became the first English side to win at Valencia’s Mestalla, also with an injury-time strike from Michael Essien.

Michael Essien hits an earlier late winner in Spain

Wednesday was one of the finest games in the club’s European history. A gracious Diego Simeone admitted his team were beaten in their casa nueva by a Chelsea side who were ‘tactically, technically and physically’ better. The performance is now a yardstick by which all others can be measured this season.
The achievement is all the more remarkable for the Blues coming from behind: Atletico, second in La Liga, are notoriously tough hosts and have conceded just two equalising goals at home in the league since 2015/16.
The poise and prowess leading to both goals was especially impressive. There were 13 passes by the visitors covering most of the pitch before the Eden Hazard’s wicked cross created Morata’s deft header.
And on the last-kick winner, when many teams would have either drawn out the final 15 seconds or flung the ball into the ‘mixer’, the Blues spatchcocked the hosts with nine touches from seven different players: Andreas Christensen, Willian, N’Golo Kante, Victor Moses, Marcos Alonso, Tiemoue Bakayoko and, of course, Michy Batshuayi.

This was remarkable vindication of Antonio Conte’s tactical versatility, as well as his handling of Eden Hazard’s rehabilitation after serious injury. The Belgian was impish and irresistible, drawing opposition defenders towards him like iron filings to a magnet.
His burgeoning combinations with Alvaro Morata, the Swiss army knife of finishing, were a thing to savour and it is the Hispanic influence that is triumphant at present: after the Madrid jaunt, a Spaniard has scored or set up 17 of Chelsea’s past 18 goals.
Morata’s opener at Stoke, clocked at 82 seconds, is the second fastest goal in the Premier League this season. The no.9 will have to strike even faster to be among our quickest goalscorers in the Premier League era (see below). And the swiftest ever, by Keith Weller against Middlesbrough in the League Cup at the Bridge on 7 October 1970, hit the net after just 12 seconds.

FIRST-MINUTE CHELSEA GOALS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE
19 seconds	08/10/1994	John Spencer	Leicester (h)	W 4-0
24 seconds	12/09/1998	Gianfranco Zola	Nottm For (h)	W 2-1
28 seconds	03/10/1999	Gus Poyet	Man Utd (h)	W 5-0
29 seconds	21/02/2004	Eidur Gudjohnsen	Arsenal (h)	L 1-2
30 seconds	23/10/2016	Pedro	Man Utd (h)	W 4-0
35 seconds	30/08/2014	Diego Costa	Everton (a)	W 6-3
36 seconds	20/11/2004	Damien Duff	Bolton (h)	D 2-2
39 seconds	01/03/2016	Kenedy	Norwich (a)	W 2-1
47 seconds	29/04/2012	Daniel Sturridge	QPR (h)	W 6-1
49 seconds	17/01/2015	Oscar	Swansea (a)	W 5-0
50 seconds	01/02/1997	Sol Campbell own goal	Tottenham (a)	W 2-1
50 seconds	02/05/2009	Nicolas Anelka	Fulham (h)	W 3-1

Last weekend’s 4-0 scoreline matched our all-time biggest victory away to Stoke, and Morata’s hat-trick was our first on their ground, the first by a Blues player in the league since Diego Costa at Swansea three years ago the same month, and the 17th in the Premier League for the west Londoners.
Morata’s was the second hat-trick in succession after Batshuayi’s against Qarabag. The last time Chelsea players registered hat-tricks in consecutive matches was in the days of Ruud Gullit’s ‘sexy football’: 29 November 1997 (Chelsea 4 Derby 0 and Gianfranco Zola) and 6 December 1997 (Tottenham 1 Chelsea 6 and Tore Andre Flo).
Popular centre-forward Mark Hughes scored in the first of those games and was benched for the second, but as a coach he now has the least successful record of any former player against the Blues, losing on 20 occasions.
Only Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes (22), and Harry Redknapp and Arsene Wenger (21) have tasted defeat more times against Chelsea.