It was the kind of victory, one imagines, the entire medical profession will toast. Well, apart from the two physiotherapists in Chelsea colours who came on during the first half, dropped some of their equipment, missed the fact there were
two injured players rather than one and gave Manchester City’s gloating supporters the chance to add to José Mourinho’s discomfort.
By the end, Mourinho’s players looked just as confused and his medics might have to understand if the loud cries of “sacked in the morning”, followed by chants in favour of Dr Eva Carneiro, become a regular soundtrack wherever Chelsea play this season. Nothing, however, will have irritated their manager more than the way his players crumpled. They have seldom been beaten so comprehensively and, on top of everything else that has happened in the embryonic stages of the new season, Chelsea could hardly have imagined their defence of the title would get off to a more harrowing start.
They have shown their staying power before and it would be daft to write them off but it must be disturbing, nonetheless, for Mourinho that his team are five points behind already and locked in a game of catch-up against the side that has just subjected them to a rare, old-fashioned beating. City look stronger, fitter and more motivated than last season and even at this early stage the gap feels like a sizeable advantage. Yes, it is way too early to make snap judgments about the impact on the title race. It has, however, been long enough to ascertain that Manuel Pellegrini’s team are going to make a much better fist of it this time.
City have started the new campaign in a way that makes it feel perplexing they could not have challenged Chelsea more tenaciously last year. It was rare to see Mourinho’s team look so vulnerable and even ignoring, for one moment, the goals from Sergio Agüero, Vincent Kompany and Fernandinho, there were so many other chances for City it felt slightly preposterous for Chelsea’s manager to call it a “fake result”.
Mourinho’s argument was that Chelsea were the better side in the second half and, perhaps for 25 minutes, they were. Yet the rest of the match leant heavily in City’s favour and the bumper crowd of 54,331 – on the day City opened the new, vertiginous South Stand – could also reflect on four presentable chances, all falling to Agüero, before the scoring started and John Terry’s afternoon turned into a personal ordeal.
Terry played every single minute for Chelsea in the league last season. He had not been substituted in 177 games and his withdrawal at half-time, looking like a player in need of smelling salts, probably epitomised how the afternoon went for the champions.
Agüero had given him the runaround and seemed locked in a personal duel with Asmir Begovic, deputising for Thibaut Courtois in the Chelsea goal, before his perseverance finally paid off just after the half-hour, when he turned away from Gary Cahill and expertly rolled a left-foot shot in off the post. Agüero was a constant menace and if he can avoid the injury issues that have affected him over the previous two years there can be no doubt City have the most accomplished striker in the league.
Chelsea have a formidable one of their own in Diego Costa but the difference between the two was laid bare here. Agüero spent the match trying to find a legitimate way past the Chelsea defence, always looking for space and an opportunity to draw back his shooting foot. Costa, on the other hand, seemed entirely preoccupied with winning free-kicks, throwing his hands in the air in barely plausible outrage and trying to pick fights that, for the most part, were only in his imagination.
He was entitled to be aggrieved by the clattering elbow that left him with a bandaged head towards the end of the first half and could easily have resulted in a red card for Fernandinho. Yet there has been a change in Costa since his hamstring problem flared up last season. His aggression can be a useful trait but it is reaching the point when it is his first tactic, and threatening only sporadically in more orthodox ways.
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