This frenetic and pleasingly gripping encounter between the Premier League’s two leading sides was only 20 minutes old when the Chelsea fans in the Matthew Harding Stand spotted the day’s designated pantomime villain, Jamie Redknapp, in the Sky Sports studio and channelled their inner Kim Sears by sending a few loud and pointed chants in his direction. Suffice to say, those songs do not belong in a newspaper, but they summed up the mood of defiance at Stamford Bridge that allowed an under-par Chelsea to muster the sheer strength of character to keep Manchester City at bay.
José Mourinho was up for this one. He spent the entire match in coiled-spring mode, skulking around his technical area, always liable to erupt at one of Mark Clattenburg’s decisions, his presence on the touchline so dynamic that at one point he appeared to develop telekinetic powers and made Bacary Sagna fall over simply by standing a bit too close to the pitch for the City right-back’s liking. Later, Mourinho kicked the ball against an unsuspecting James Milner. It was an accident, but even so, you can see why Mourinho likes Diego Costa.
The problem for Chelsea was that Costa was restricted to sitting in the stands looking mean, moody and thoroughly fed up after the Football Association decided that his impromptu stroll down Emre Can’s shins during last Tuesday’s League Cup semi-final victory against Liverpool was worthy of a three-match suspension, and if Mourinho had been willing to end his self-imposed media ban, he might have borrowed a phrase from the father of his favourite pundit and noted that he was down to the bare bones. The leaders were deprived not just of Costa, but the hamstrung Cesc Fàbregas too, which meant that City approached this match with the belief that they could begin the daunting process of reeling in Chelsea’s five-point lead.
Without Costa and Fàbregas, this promised to be a searching examination of Chelsea’s fringe players and for a club of their vast resources, there was a jarringly shallow look to their bench. Nathan Aké, Isaiah Brown, Andreas Christensen and Ruben Loftus-Cheek – who made it on in the dying stages – have impressed at youth level, but they are yet to establish themselves in the senior squad, while even the one Chelsea substitute who might have swung the game their way, Didier Drogba, is approaching the end of his glittering career. By comparison, City threw on the attacking might of Edin Dzeko, Stevan Jovetic and Frank Lampard as they chased a winner in the second half.
And from a broader perspective, it was impossible not to glance at the team sheet and experience some nagging doubts about Chelsea’s squad management. On Friday night, the outstanding performer in a clash between the Bundesliga’s top two was Kevin De Bruyne, a winger whose unhappy two years as a Chelsea player feel like an administrative mistake now. De Bruyne was restricted to two league games and a handful of appearances in cup competitions for Chelsea before being sold to Wolfsburg last January, but there he was, tearing Bayern Munich apart, scoring two high-class goals in a 4-1 victory against Pep Guardiola’s side and generally making life miserable for a wheezing Dante in the Bayern defence.
De Bruyne was never really given the opportunity to play like that for Chelsea, and his performance felt pertinent, given that André Schürrle is on the verge of linking up with the Belgian winger at Wolfsburg, and Mohamed Salah is about to join Fiorentina as part of the Juan Cuadrado deal. Salah has been at Chelsea for a year.
Mourinho has preferred to stick with a small, trusted core of players this season, keeping any rotation to a minimum, and that has been good enough to put Chelsea in a commanding position at the top of the league.
Yet this was a leggy performance from Chelsea, which was hardly surprising, given that eight of their starting lineup had played 120 minutes against Liverpool four days earlier, and they lacked control in midfield without Fàbregas’s touch and an edge in attack without Costa’s snarl and goal threat. Ramires replaced Fàbregas, but he has none of the Spaniard’s poise on the ball, and Loïc Rémy was making only his second league start up front.
Chelsea’s most incisive moment by a long margin was Rémy’s opener, masterfully constructed by Branislav Ivanovic and Eden Hazard, yet they were often blunt going forward. Rémy fed off scraps and Oscar and Willian both struggled to impose themselves.
City were the silkier side and Jesús Navas, Fernandinho and Sergio Agüero had all wasted presentable opportunities by the time the excellent David Silva turned in the equaliser just before half-time.
Chelsea were pinned back for much of the second half, rarely looking bothered about trying to score a second goal, and it was notable that Mourinho waited until the final 10 minutes before bringing on Drogba.
Yet Chelsea defended with heart and organisation and it was clear that Mourinho was content with a point when Gary Cahill was brought on as an extra defender with four minutes left.
City’s fans were unimpressed with Mourinho’s negativity, but it was a sensible move and their players could probably learn a thing or two about Chelsea’s hard-nosed defending when their backs were against the wall. A share of the spoils means that Chelsea remain in control of their own destiny.
