The really worrying thing for Arsenal about their late season attack of the wobbles is not just what it’s done for them but also what it’s given to Manchester City.
Here at Stamford Bridge – where teams once came expecting a real game – City presented themselves as a team re-energised and freshly motivated by their rivals’ sudden display of weakness.
There is nothing that will drive a really good team like opportunity. Arsenal – as they have sunk deeper into a worry pit of inertia and impotence – have opened the door for City at the top of the Premier League and Pep Guardiola and his players now look in the mood to blow it off its hinges.
It hasn’t always looked that way this season for City. They are a new team finding their own way and at times have looked a little unsure of their own identity. But all that really matters now is what stands before them and after this second-half dismantling of Liam Rosenior’s increasingly irrelevant Chelsea, it is hard not to look upon them as title favourites.
It would appear as though Arsenal are going to have to land a blow in order to deny City. That opportunity comes at the Etihad next Sunday afternoon when the teams meet.
In beating Arsenal at Wembley in the Carabao Cup final three weeks ago, City flexed their muscles enough to spook Mikel Arteta’s team. Now Arsenal must do the same and on the evidence of this weekend’s football that looks very unlikely indeed.
Manchester City are taking advantage of the opportunity that Arsenal have presented to them
Pep Guardiola’s side ran riot as they dispatched of Chelsea in a dominant second-half
Strangely, City were modest at best for 45 minutes here in west London. They seemed a little slow to grasp what lay before them. Chelsea were marginally the better team in a poor first-half.
But half-time intervals can do wonderful things for teams and for Guardiola and City this was clearly 15 minutes very well spent. They were simply fabulous in the second-half, with their two best players – the mercurial Rayan Cherki and the burgeoning English talent Nico O’Reilly – central to what became a victory secured with something held back in reserve.
O’Reilly scored the first goal – another header to add the two that downed Arsenal at Wembley – while Cherki set that one up and the next one, stroked in by central defender Marc Guehi soon after. Two goals in five minutes and that was that.
The third came in the 68th minute and that one was scored by Jeremy Doku after he was presented with the ball by Chelsea captain Moises Caicedo.
That rather summed up Chelsea in the second-half. All a bit ‘meh’. What to really make of Rosenior’s team? It really is hard to say.
They don’t have a discernible identity and if they don’t manage to finish in the top five of the worst Premier League for quite some time then it’s hard to think they will have a manager for much longer either. Maybe the FA Cup will save him.
Rosenior was as he always is here. Visible. He looks the part on the touchline. From the press seats, it’s often possible to hear him also. But are his players listening? It’s hard to think they really are.
Currently – with five defeats coming in their last six games – Chelsea are hurtling backwards at a rate of knots.
Nico O’Reilly scored City’s first goal and is becoming a growing menace down his side’s left
Marc Guehi (right) and Jeremy Doku (second right) were also on the scoresheet for the away side at Stamford Bridge
Earlier on, it had felt a little different. Chelsea were the more progressive and even thought they had the lead. Their left back Marc Cucurella was the game’s best attacking player in the first 20 minutes and thought he had scored running on to Joao Pedro’s cute pass to shoot in to the corner across Gianluigi Donnarumma with his left foot. It was a neat finish but it prompted the raising of a linesman’s flag and VAR confirmed that Cucurella had made his run a fraction too soon.
City at this stage were not short of possession but most of what they did got swallowed up by the massed blue ranks whereas Chelsea broke with some purpose and direction. On more than one occasion, Chelsea midfield players – with Cole Palmer prominent – found space between the City midfield and back four to worry Guardiola’s team.
Donnarumma only made one real save, though, and that came during this busy Chelsea period, Pedro Neto brushing off two City challenges to shoot against the Italian’s legs from an angle on the left.
A goal would not have surprised anybody at this stage. City were far from their best. Gradually, though, they developed a threat with the tall and athletic England full back O’Reilly a growing menace down the left side. Two of his crosses led to half chances, one for Bernardo Silva and another for Cherki. Robert Sanchez saved both as he did a low Antoine Semenyo shot from 18 yards just before half-time.
And maybe we should have sensed what was coming. Maybe we should have sniffed the change in the game’s emphasis.
Soon enough we were in no doubt as to what was happening. In the very first minute of the second-half Doku played Erling Haaland into space. The City striker’s shot was blocked when he should have scored but almost in an instant the City threat had increased tenfold and in the stadium it was impossible not to feel it. There was more energy and purpose. And after Cherki had delivered a low shot across goal, a set piece was worked short, the Frenchman crossed from the right and O’Reilly got rid of his marker Andrey Santos to head powerfully in from six yards.
It was the definitive moment of the game. Chelsea didn’t have the required resolve to recover and City, sniffing blood, applied the necessary pressure to wrap the game up. It was so impressive to watch. This was a collective understanding of what was required, a unanimous second half improvement that simply swept a vastly inferior opponent away.
Five minutes later it was 2-0. This time a corner was taken on the left side and when it was worked short, Cherki moved the ball laterally across the top of the penalty area before sliding in Guehi who controlled it on the half turn and swept it across Sanchez with his right foot.
Chelsea are a team who look to be going backwards – it’s hard to think the players are listening to Liam Rosenior
Cole Palmer continues to struggle for form with the Blues despite being their most treatening player in midfield here
Chelsea were cooked and they knew it. From the seats near the home dugout came some messages that Rosenior may do well not to take literally. On the field meanwhile, Caicedo gave the ball away 35 yards out and Doku strode away to smash number three low to Sanchez’s right.
The only disappointment by this stage for City was that O’Reilly was no longer on the field. The young defender seemed to feel a muscle with the score at 2-0.
With the game gone, Chelsea did not give up. They fashioned a couple of half chances and Guehi had indeed blocked one shot from Palmer that may have breathed a little life into the home team had it gone in.
But ultimately, this was a stroll for City. A show of strength when they needed it most.
‘Are you watching Arsenal?’ they sang in the away end. It may be best for Arteta and his players if they were not.
