Chelsea handed Manchester City their first league defeat of the season overpowering the league leaders at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea handed Manchester City their first league defeat of the season overpowering the league leaders at Stamford Bridge.
Craig Burley was surprised to not see a reaction from Manchester City to N’Golo Kanté’s first-half goal, in Chelsea’s 2-0 win over the title-holders.
Maurizio Sarri was quick to rule out Chelsea’s title chances after their victory over Manchester City.
LONDON, England — Manchester City’s defeat to Chelsea had nothing to do with the absence of Sergio Aguero and Kevin De Bruyne, according to Pep Guardiola.
City’s unbeaten start to the season came to an end with a 2-0 defeat against Chelsea as they slipped below Liverpool at the top of the Premier League. Guardiola was missing key players but the City boss believed his side’s performance was better than in last season’s 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge.
“It always happens when they are not here. When we won, nobody asked me about the people that are not here,” he told a post-match news conference. “Of course I would prefer to be with Aguero, Kevin, [Benjamin] Mendy and everybody, but the guys made an incredible performance today. If someone can assure me that if we had them we would have won… nobody knows.
“Now my feeling, knowing the opponent, the performance was outstanding. I have the feeling that last season when we won, this season we played better. But last season Kevin had the ball … and got the goal. Game over. Today we missed it a little bit. We will improve for next games, we have tough games [in the league] and in Europe in February.”
Pep Guardiola was without several key players in Manchester City’s loss to Chelsea.
Without Aguero, who could be back for the midweek Champions League clash with Hoffenheim, Guardiola decided to start with Raheem Sterling as a false nine rather than play Gabriel Jesus as a striker. He explained he thought it was the best way to break Chelsea’s high press but was surprised when Maurizio Sarri’s team sat back for large parts of the first half.
“Gabriel is more a guy in the box,” he said. “I knew that they would stay high. In the end, they waited a little bit lower and I didn’t expect that.
“But when they are higher we wanted a guy like Riyad [Mahrez] or Raheem to make a one-against-one action. That was our idea. That’s why we decided today to play Raheem more centrally than wider.”
David Silva also limped off late in the second half with a possible muscle injury.
Liverpool now have a one-point advantage over Guardiola’s team but the Catalan said it’s far too early to talk about them being new favourites for the title.
“We are in December. If you tell me Liverpool can win the Premier League I will say ‘yes.’ If you tell me Tottenham, Arsenal or Chelsea can, I will say ‘yes,’” he added.
“Everybody can win the Premier League but the people judge what happened last season when we were the best. We did it so far but of course when we lose I wouldn’t like to be misunderstood. An argument when you are defeated looks like an excuse. I’m sitting here trying to tell you what I saw and what I saw was quite good.”
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