As you were then. On a chilly, boisterous night at Stamford Bridge a match billed as the most watched in Premier League history ended with Manchester City, driven on by their enduring creative stars, Sergio Agüero and David Silva, having the best of a slow-burn 1-1 draw but with Chelsea, whose own A-list creative midfield faded as the match progressed, taking greater heart in a share of the points.
This mid-season blockbuster had always looked a City-facing affair, a more significant match for the champions than for the team still five points clear at the top. City are, of course, seasoned chasers although whether they have the legs to hunt Chelsea down this time seems likely to turn on the familiar but still beguiling strengths on show again here.
By the end of a match that never really looked like revving through the gears there was evidence of what anyone who has watched City’s gradual evolution over the last three years already knew to be the case.
Not only does Agüero remain City’s chief cutting edge, an all-purpose attacking inspiration on whom they remain disproportionately reliant, but with that beefy all-Brazilian central midfield offering nothing in the way of spark it is only his fellow scurrying technician Silva who seems likely to offer him a hand. A good job then that both remain such sinuously effective big-game players. In the first half here Agüero showed once again why he remains, even in the middle of a minor goal drought, the single most incisive attacker in the Premier League.
With Silva also prominent it was City’s twinkle-toed old guard who came increasingly to the fore as the visitors first equalised and then set their sights on pushing Chelsea back after half-time.
As they needed to. Not only did City have a huge incentive to press for a win here, they have also found scoring goals a trial in recent weeks. When the six-minute mark passed Manuel Pellegrini’s team had gone a combined 200 minutes of goalless football since Fernandinho’s equaliser at Everton three weeks ago.
Even Agüero has had a slight dip by his own vertiginous standards, scoring in only three Premier League matches since he got four against Spurs in mid-October – albeit only Agüero could experience a minor goal drought that also includes a hat-trick against Bayern Munich.
Pellegrini resisted the temptation to play two strikers, starting instead with the attacking tripod of Jesús Navas, Silva and James Milner behind the lone striker. As City started well enough, funnelling the ball about in midfield, Agüero’s first real contribution came on 17 minutes as he worked a space to shoot with one of those thrillingly shark-like swerving runs, only for Kurt Zouma to sprint back and produce a fine block.
With 23 minutes gone Agüero still looked the only City player on the pitch not in standby mode, taking a pass from James Milner and making space for a shot that Thibaut Courtois batted away.
It was from a deeper position that Agüero played a part in Silva’s equalising goal on 45 minutes, shortly after Loïc Rémy had opened the scoring for Chelsea at the end of a beautifully worked team goal. Fittingly, it was a City goal conceived by the Agüero-Silva axis. From Silva’s flicked pass Bacary Sagna played in Navas on the right. His cross was flapped at by Courtois under pressure and as the ball broke the Argentinian’s left-foot shot was redirected into the net by Silva close in, reward for his own timely positional hunch and for Agüero’s ability to find just the right space at the edge of the area.
Up to that point Silva had drifted in and out. Five years into his City career he remains arguably the value buy of the mega-money years, a free radical within this rigid, hard-running team and a player whose basic superpower remains the ability to keep open at all times, like a handy desktop window, a perfectly composed picture of the spaces around him, waiting as the planets revolve for the perfect moment to nudge and probe with malevolent precision.
As City continued to press during a tight second half it was Silva who carried the fight. Agüero left the pitch with 10 minutes to go, without a goal now since early December, but sharp enough to suggest that run will end shortly. As it needs to.
City’s back-up still looks a significant class below. Stevan Jovetic’s time may still come but so far since his £22m move he has scored only twice away from the Etihad. Edin Dzeko has been injured or injury-lagged all season but he has also scored in only one of his 13 Premier League games this season. And for all the evidence of City’s well-worn strengths at the Bridge there is still plenty for Pellegrini to contemplate.
Much has been made of the fact City made up an eight-point gap to win the league three years ago. It would be wrong to suggest that was a different City team. In fact, it was basically the same team, just three years younger. The guts of that championship-winning squad remain the guts of this one.
City’s best players are still Silva, Yaya Touré and Agüero. Whatever happens from now on they will need plenty more of the same old, same old if they are to haul in that five-point lead.
