Anyway, thanks for reading. Good game and stuff. Here’s Daniel Taylor’s match report of the game. Enjoy your Saturday night.
Updated
Those substitutions really were curious from Pellegrini. They were on top and a win would’ve really dragged the title race back, and needed just one goal...so he takes off their two best attacking players.
Well, both sides will probably be relatively happy with a point, although Chelsea more so, one imagines. Indeed, City might be curiously disappointed that they didn’t win it, given their absolute domination in the second-half. Chelsea defended very well, notably Zouma who looks like a talent. The gap stays at five points.
Full-time: Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Updated
90 mins + 2: Utterly awful corner from Navas, going straight into the first man. Final change, with Oscar going off and replaced by Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
90 mins: Lots of pressure now. Milner gets to the byline, chips a cross over and Zouma does brilliantly to head away with two City players waiting at the back post. Three minutes of added time.
89 mins: Another weird sub by Pellegrini - Silva is off, Jovetic is on.
88 mins: Close from City, as they finally manage to pick their way through the massed ranks and Silva feeds Milner, but his cross-shot thing goes across goal and wide, with nobody following it in.
87 mins: Mourinho very happy indeed with the point, it seems - Gary Cahill replaces Remy.
85 mins: Sustained City pressure here...without actually putting Chelsea under much pressure, if that makes sense. They’ve had the ball a lot in the Chelsea half, but haven’t created too many chances. Lampard clips a ball over the top looking for Silva, but it’s too long.
83 mins: And it’s Agüero he replaces, which is a bit of a weird one.
82 mins: From the way Mourinho is yelling and wildly gesticulating, the tactical reshuffle hasn’t been carried out to his liking. Edin Dzeko about to come on.
80 mins: Some sort of misfortune has befallen Willian, who limps off to be replaced by Didier Drogba. Presumably Remy will go out wide with Drogba up top.
78 mins: Pictures? Pictures. Here’s a lovely gallery from this game.
77 mins: Lampard’s first touch...is a heavy pass for Silva out on the left, which goes out for a throw.
76 mins: Fernando is indeed the man to be brought off, and while a few people boo initially, most of the crowd welcome Lampard to the pitch, some with flags and scarves bearing his image. Bit much, that.
Updated
75 mins: Lampard is tying his socks, and will be on in moments. Brace yourselves, narrative fans.
73 mins: Fernando goes into the book for barging Hazard to the floor. He’s still struggling a bit with that cramp, by the looks of things. Would be a good idea to hook him pronto.
Updated
72 mins:
Jose Mourinho didn't ask to be born.
— Daniel Harris (@DanielHarris) January 31, 2015
71 mins: Milner lines it down to Silva who’s barrelled over by Matic. A clear free-kick, perhaps worth a booking, but for some reason Mourinho is thoroughly ticked off. Although in fairness, he’s ticked off by a lot of things.
68 mins: Milner wins the ball from Ramires and everyone half stops, expecting a foul to be given, but Clattenburg waves the advantage through and the ball breaks to Fernandinho. He has options left and right, but tries a side-footed shot from range and it’s fairly easy for Courtois.
66 mins: Fernando appears to have cramp. Huh. After just over an hour of a game in the freezing cold. Huh.
64 mins: Lampard could well be imminent. Navas ghosts around Azpilicueta again (he really is giving him a chasing), crosses to the back stick where Milner gets to a header, but it loops onto the top of the goal.
62 mins: Ramires is bundled over breaking from halfway, then complains at length as to why no booking was handed out. Willian then makes a complete guff of the resultant free-kick.
Updated
61 mins: Ah, some really nice interchanges towards the right corner of the box nearly creates a chance for City, but Agüero slips at the crucial moment and Chelsea manage to smuggle it clear. Chelsea looking pretty sluggish at the moment.
59 mins: City very much on top here, but they really do need to score while they’re on top, because you know what Jose Mourinho sides are like.
58 mins: Hatchet man Silva gets a taste of his own medicine as Matic takes a maverick approach to tackling by trying to get to the ball, but going through the Spaniard’s knee first.
56 mins: Almost a very weird goal. Silva feeds Navas on the right of the box, who gets to the byline and chips a cross into the centre, where Fernandinho meets it about 15 yards from goal on the run, heads into the ground and it bounces high, dips down and Courtois has to flip it over the bar.
Updated
55 mins: Milner powers down the left but Zouma zooms in and puts in a cracking tackle to stop him. Looks good, does this kid. From the corner, Sagna goes up with Matic and the ball very clearly goes behind off the Chelsea man, but despite having a perfect view referee Clattenburg gives a goal-kick.
54 mins: The sulk continues...
Jose Mourinho won't be fulfilling his post-match media duties with the press, a Chelsea spokesman has told me. Neither will Steve Holland
— Paul Lagan (@CFCJourno) January 31, 2015
52 mins: Hatchet man Silva does go into the book now, for a fairly cynical knee-high clip on Matic that sends the big midfielder down in instalments.
51 mins: Jose Mourinho is clad in full tracksuit and terrible trainers. No longer the days of the coat.
50 mins: Navas gets down the right and manages to carve out a chance for a cross, but slices it horribly over the bar. Remember when he was so homesick he could barely leave Seville?
49 mins: Hatchet man David Silva chops down Hazard, but the playmakers’ union kicks in as they politely shake hands, and the referee takes no further action.
47 mins: Frank Lampard warms up on the touchline. He’s roundly booed as he drops his trousers and gives the home crowd the finger. Just kidding - he applauds the Chelsea fans politely and they applaud right back.
Updated
46 mins: We’re off again.
Sam Care has a potential explanation for the Kompany blunder: “I thought it was less that Kompany let the ball go for someone else, and more so him attempting not to injure himself extending his leg. His left leg gets stuck underneath him, and if he fully extends the right leg, looks like he could’ve pulled something. Hmmm, I guess we’ll never know.”
“That Shep Messing advert (39 mins) could well provide Wenger with the answer to his recent goalkeeping problems,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “But be warned Arsene: Messing was American keeper who posed naked for Playgirl in the 70s, and nobody wants to see Wojciech Szczesny standing in the showers in the altogether chewing tobacco, thanks.”
If you’re feeling spicy, look up those Messing pictures. A ‘celebration of human form’, one might say.
“Did it look to you as if Kompany expected somebody behind him to clear the ball, and refrained from extending his legs to clear Hazard’s cross while sliding?” asks Alec Martin. “He seemed to realize his error in the next instant, judging from his frustrated body language...”
Dunno, perhaps. If so that was terrible - never leave the thing for someone else to get rid of when it’s in your own six-yard box.
Bit of an odd game. I guess it’s been fairly interesting, but there haven’t been that many notable incidents - or at least there weren’t any until the last five minutes of the half, in which mistakes from both defences and some fine attacking play combined for the two goals.
Half-time: Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City
Peeeeeeeeeeeep.
45 mins: Navas does brilliantly to speed down the right and flip a decent cross into the box, that Courtois - perhaps put off by a couple of players just in front of him, flaps at and can only punch to Agüero on the edge of the box. He hits it first time towards the corner, but Silva sticks out a leg and diverts it into the net.
Updated
GOAL! Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City (Silva 45)
Well, well, well.
Updated
43 mins: Weird from Kompany that. Presumably he was scared of putting through his own goal, but surely it’s better to take the chance and try to hoof it away than just let it run to an unmarked striker. He’s been desperate in the last few weeks.
41 mins: Lovely sprayed pass out from Matic out to Hazard on the left, who puts a low ball across the edge of the six-yard box, which Kompany should cut out but instead for some reason doesn’t extend his leg properly, and Remy is there to power into a basically empty net.
Updated
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Manchester City (Remy 41)
Sort of from nowhere, that.
Updated
39 mins: Non-sequitur from William Plowden: “I think both of these are good sides but no side can be great until they have a player with a moustache.”
Perhaps one of them could persuade Shep Messing out of retirement...
“@AntiqueFootball: "I love tobacco, I don't smoke" says Shep Messing, soccer star. #NASL pic.twitter.com/xmn7R8KKDC” Anuncio USA.
— Fútbol Concacaf (@ConcacafSphera) December 2, 2014
37 mins: Surreal moment as Ramires spreads a Xabi Alonso-esque pass from right to left, aiming for...absolutely nobody. Weird.
36 mins: Hazard appears to have done himself a minor mischief. Not sure how/when, but he ain’t happy. The last thing Chelsea need.
34 mins: Adam Hirst is missing someone: “He’s only been in the country 6 months but already he’s badly missed. This match, this fixture, needed Diego Costa in to provide some spice and some spite, and try to make something of what is likely to be the most important head-to-head in English football over the next few years. It needs livening up. Something nasty needs to happen to put it up there with United v Arsenal or Chelsea v Liverpool of recent years. Perhaps a fight between the managers would help.”
Hard to disagree my friend, hard to disagree.
32 mins: Big shouts from a handball just outside the City box, as the ball jumps up and perhaps strikes Demichelis on the arm, but there was nothing he could’ve done about that.
City then have their best chance of the game from a long punt upfield that sets Agüero clean through on goal, but instead of putting those colossal thighs to good use and battering the thing, he pulls a fairly tame shot wide of the far post.
30 mins: A poor touch from Kompany is seized upon by Remy, and he’s away down the left, he cuts it back to the edge of the area where it finds Oscar, but his left-footed shot is reasonably weak and Hart gathers.
28 mins: From a corner, Azpilicueta and Agüero wrestle with each other at the far post, both men go to the turf and the referee awards the free-kick to Chelsea. But, that could only have been a guess - almost impossible to see who was the instigator in that one.
Updated
27 mins: Agüero takes an absolutely dreamy touch to bring down a long pass just inside the Chelsea box, then feeds Milner who tries to run through about five defenders, which he doesn’t manage but does get a corner out of it.
25 mins: Hazard shows Ivanovic how to dribble out of trouble, twisting and turning away from a few City players outside his own box, but those City players combine to knock him to the ground and a free-kick is given.
Updated
24 mins: Ivanovic makes a ghastly muff of things by trying to dribble out of defence past Milner, but the doughty Englisman tackles him and slips inside to Agüero, who is pushed out to the left but still manages to get a shot away, which is saved with relative ease by Courtois.
22 mins: A delivery of soap to West London for the mouths of those Chelsea fans, please.
Inventive reworking of You’ll Never Walk Alone from Chelsea fans to demonstrate their distaste for Jamie Redknapp. Lots of c-words.
— Ed Malyon (@eaamalyon) January 31, 2015
21 mins: Nice ball from Willian clipped over the top looking for the run of Remy, but the French striker is a hair offside, and the flag goes up.
19 mins: The ball seems to have been deep on the Chelsea right for about five minutes. It ends with a deflected cross that skips straight to Joe Hart in the City nets.
17 mins: In case you were wondering, Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas are both at the game, and they’re displaying some sensational examples of knitwear, the former in jumper form and the latter a Benny from Crossroads-style bobble hat.
Meanwhile, Agüero breaks into the box on the right, where Kurt Zouma makes a splendid sliding challenge to nix the danger.
Updated
16 mins: Taking this as a full justification of my stance.
@NickMiller79 Djokovic and Hazard, you've never seen them together...
— Winslow Hall (@WinslowTeaHall) January 31, 2015
15 mins: Navas pops on some pace down the right, clips a decent ball into the middle, but for some reasons there’s nobody there to convert what would’ve been a very presentable chance.
14 mins: Hazard wins a corner on the right, it’s swung over but John Terry’s header from about 15 yards loops apathetically out of play.
13 mins: A lull. Both teams could just be taking a blow after that frenzied first ten minutes. City and Chelsea take it in turns to try and build some possession, knocking it around the back and midfield.
11 mins: Eden Hazard and Novak Djokovic? Anyone see it as well?
Might just be me.
Updated
8 mins: Blimey, City go very close as Navas slips it to Fernandinho on the right of the box, he shoots low aiming for the bottom corner but it’s deflected wide. David Silva was flapping his arms in oodles of space at the far post, but he must settle for a corner.
7 mins: This really is frantic stuff, but not a huge amount has actually happened thus far. Lots of bluster, no real substance. But, the game is yet young.
Updated
5 mins: Entertaining moment as Kompany tries to shield the ball out of play, falls to his knees under the challenge of Remy, who then gets on his back and rides him like one would a donkey.
3 mins: Chelsea pressing City hard, hard, hard as they try to pass it around the back, now. Frantic first few minutes. Lovely stuff.
1 min: And we’re off. City get at Chelsea straight away, James Milner coming across from the left, feeding Jesus Navas who batters a shot towards goal, which Thibaut Courtois flings his hands up to and beats it away. Sparky start.
The teams make their way to the pitch, accompanied as ever at Stamford Bridge by ‘The Liquidator’...
Or perhaps, if you prefer, you’d like to hear what Manuel Pellegrini had to say about Jose Mourinho’s tin-foil hat-wearing, David Icke/Jim Corr-esque conspiracy theory about some sort of vast conspiracy against Chelsea:
I hope that in the Premier League – the most important league in the world – they don’t have a campaign against anyone. I hope all is fair and the referee makes mistakes for all the teams exactly the same, that the FA make the fixtures in a fair way and the punishments.
For my way of thinking I think it is the best league in the world and I don’t think it has any strange things. Because [if that’s the case] then you are not competing [fairly]. After that, if you win the title, it’s not an important title, because it is all arranged.
And when you’ve finished reading that, how about Jamie Jackson on Vincent Kompany’s form, or lack thereof:
A fortnight ago City went down 2-0 to Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium with Kompany culpable for the first goal: his dribble upfield ceded possession and when Arsenal counterattacked Kompany compounded the error by fouling Nacho Monreal. Santi Cazorla duly converted the penalty.
Early on in last Saturday’s 2-0 FA Cup home defeat by Middlesbrough Kompany nearly paid again when trying to take the ball from defence, and his inability to steady a shaky rearguard was a concern.
Kompany’s patchy displays have peppered a season in which Manuel Pellegrini’s side have struggled to consistently dominate domestically and on the continent. A Champions League campaign that came close to disaster featured Kompany allowing Roma’s Francesco Totti too much space for the equaliser in a 1-1 draw in September, and he was again part of a lumbering defence that allowed CSKA Moscow to come from two goals down a month later to again share the points.
A big factor here are the eye-watering number of injuries Kompany has suffered since joining City and his admirable keenness to return, often too soon, which means any rustiness is exposed.
Some pre-match reading for you. Firstly, from Daniel Taylor on the respective histories of the two sides. Summary: more than the chants would have you believe.
Perhaps this might be an appropriate time, then, to point out that Manchester Citywon their first FA Cup 26 years before Arsenal and their first League Cup 17 years earlier. Their first European trophy, the 1970 Cup Winners’ Cup, arrived before any of Liverpool’s. They broke the attendance record for the first time in 1924 and there are 110 years between the first and last of their major honours. Only two clubs, Blackburn Rovers (118 years) and Liverpool (111), have a longer span of success.
Likewise, Chelsea’s supporters can probably be forgiven for feeling slightly bemused about the kind of chants that could be heard at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday. As it happened, Chelsea also lifted a European trophy before Liverpool. A plastic new-age club? Chelsea had the best average attendance in England 10 times from 1908 to 1955. They were the first team to average more than 40,000 during one season and their FA Cup final replay against Leeds in 1970 pulled in a television audience of 28 million, the best there has been for a club game in England.
City have not done too badly either given that the crowd of 84,659 to watch an FA Cup tie against Stoke City in 1934 is still a record in English football. No history? Well, King George V chose Hyde Road, City’s first ground, when he became the first monarch to attend a game and if you go back even further into the Manchester Evening News archives you will find sepia-tinted clippings from 1902 when the club were raising money to keep Newton Heath going (and if you know your history, you will be aware what became of Newton Heath).
Going to be lots of this...
An actual adult male human did this. - "@GChadwick_: Chelsea v Man City. #cfc #Lampard pic.twitter.com/YzYJi4WZoj"
— Huw G (@ed_son) January 31, 2015
Caleb Jones writes in with some thoughts on what Chelsea have in reserve: “Does anyone else find it strange that Chelsea’s bench looks so utterly uninspiring? I know their two best players are out but still one would think that for all the money they throw around it would manage not to have a 400 year old striker as their plan B. It’s going to get interesting if they are down after an hour.”
It’s an interesting point to be sure. That bench is depleted given that neither Mo Salah nor Andre Schürrle is on it, with both half out of the door, but even with Juan Cuadrado, expected to be there pretty soon, they do look a little thin in reserve.
I think I’d prefer a hugely undignified booing to this...
So no Cesc Fabregas, but equally it doesn’t look particularly like a bus-parking line-up by Jose Mourinho. Couple more interesting selections, notably Loïc Remy up top in place of Diego Costa instead of Didier Drogba, while big Kurt Zouma keeps his place ahead of Gary Cahill.
City are more or less as expected, although Bacary Sagna instead of Pablo Zabaleta at right-back is a curious one. Any thoughts on that call, everyone?
Team news
Chelsea
Courtois; Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta; Ramires, Matic; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Remy. Subs: Cech, Cahill, Christensen, Ake, Loftus-Cheek, Brown, Drogba
Manchester City
Hart; Sagna, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy; Fernando, Fernandinho; Navas, Milner, Silva; Aguero. Subs: Caballero, Zabaleta, Boyata, Kolarov, Lampard, Jovetic, Dzeko.
Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Co. Durham)
Premable
Right then. Probably quite a big game, this. But who’s it bigger for? Well, Manchester City, obviously, because if they lose this one then they’ll be eight points behind their opponents with 15 games remaining, and while obviously unless you’re some sort of gobby bookmaker you probably won’t declare the title race over, it will be pretty gosh darn rock solid for Manuel Pellegrini’s men to make things up from there.
Actually, forget that. It’ll be over. All over. Lose today and they won’t stand a chance. Might as well just give up right now. Dismantle the Etihad and take it away. Pack up the players and put them in crates, to be shipped off to places unknown, where they can be turned into glue or used as shop mannequins or something. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. We’re calling it now. This is official Guardian policy, dictated from the very highest authority.
By which I mean me. I’ve decided. An executive decision, if you will, much like the film of that name starring Kurt Russell and Halle Berry about a team of Navy SEALs that implausibly board a plane while it’s mid-air, a plane that has been hijacked by terrorists led by David Suchet. It also stars Steven Seagal, but don’t worry - he dies horribly in the first 20 minutes.
So do you reckon this is going to be a good game? I’m not really sure it will be, particularly if Cesc Fabregas is ruled out with the tight hammy that forced him off against Liverpool the other night. A draw will be just dandy for Chelsea, so there’s a reasonable chance that they’ll play like an away team, shutting up shop and playing for the stalemate. If only there was some sort of pithy phrase to sum up such an approach, eh?
And do you reckon the Chelsea fans will be nice to Frank Lampard? After all, he did have the gall, the cheek, the sheer temerity to sign for another football team after they decided they didn’t want him anymore. What a swine. His uncle thinks you should all stop being so beastly to him, Chelsea fans:
He should get an excellent reception, shouldn’t he? What’s he done wrong? He played for Chelsea for God knows how many years, scored how many goals, won every cup there is to win. Surely he should get a good reception.
And do you reckon we’ll get another moment of enormous drama like this fixture provided a couple of years back? The sort that we all watch football for, waiting and waiting throughout the darkest days of winter, slogging to games in the cold and rain, just in the hope that we’ll see something like this...
Anyway, here are the pre-match thoughts from Jose Mourinho, in full:
Thanks Jose. And it’s still more interesting than more or less anything Pellegrini has ever said. It is, as they say, on.
Kick-off: 5.30pm
Updated
