Super-sub Riyad Mahrez pounces to kick-start City’s title charge
Chelsea are a difficult club to manage for even the arch-pragmatists who have sat in the dugout over the last two decades, but for Graham Potter, one of the great coaching idealists of the era, this season is spiralling out of control quicker than he might have expected.
Many have lost to Pep Guardiola’s great champions of four of the last five seasons, but at home on this January night Potter needed a win more than most. The two clubs face one another again on Sunday in the FA Cup third round but it will be Thursday’s short trip to Craven Cottage for the next league game that will occupy the Chelsea manager’s thoughts in the aftermath of another defeat. Since they beat Aston Villa on Oct 16, Chelsea have taken six points from their last eight league games.
Another signing arrived in the hours before the game, the French defender Benoit Badiashile, yet when Potter was under pressure it was to his young academy players whom he turned. His triple substitution after the City goal from Riyad Mahrez in the second half saw the teenagers Lewis Hall, 18, and Omar Hutchinson, 19, come on – the latter for his senior debut – as well as Conor Gallagher. Just as telling was one of those who came off: striker Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang, himself a first half substitute.
Aubemeyang accepted Potter’s handshake with a grimace. This was not what he had in mind when the new consortium ownership led by Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali brought him from Barcelona. It was certainly not what the two private equity hawks had envisaged either. Chelsea will face Fulham in tenth, three places behind the neighbours to whom they scarcely consider rivals, and 19 points behind leaders Arsenal.
They have injuries too. Mason Mount was unavailable and Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic both went off in the first half. That is before Potter gets to the five long-term first team absentees including Reece James and his goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
Raheem Sterling added to Chelsea’s injury problems
Credit: Bradley Collyer/PA
The room for error is so slender in the modern game, and with every game that passes so the walls feel a little tighter around Potter. His club’s owners keep buying players and continue to project a future for Chelsea even bigger than its recent past. On the pitch the reality is very different. What is Chelsea’s season now? The FA Cup might be over by Sunday. The Champions League is a tall order. The top four is now ten points away.
Potter played down the significance of the Aubemeyang substitution. He picked out the parts of the game he liked, including a shot that was struck against the post by one of the first half substitutes, and another teenager, Carney Chukwuemeka. When confronted by the starkness of the run his team are on in the league, Potter had to admit that it was not up to the required standards. But he did point out that there was a context to that run and much of it had to do with injuries.
For Guardiola and his players, the gap was closed to five points on Arsenal. They have dropped points to Brentford and Everton in the Christmas and New Year fixture pile-up but they are still very much alive in this title race. Guardiola said that he had got this team wrong and by 55 minutes he had made four substitutions. He credited the 18-year-old Rico Lewis with changing the game as a half-time substitute. Lewis played in what was nominally a right-back area of the pitch but in Guardiola’s world was something very different.
Pep Guardiola abandoned his tactical approach at half time
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Lewis and Manuel Akanji arrived at half-time but before the hour there were more. The next two substitutes would win the game for Guardiola: an assist from second half arrival Jack Grealish making the winner for fellow substitute Mahrez. “From the first 20 minutes … we knew we would have to change something otherwise it would be difficult,” Guardiola said. “From the first minute of the second half it was a completely different Manchester City.”
The original City plan was ambitious. Joao Cancelo was advanced high on the right touchline – the full-back forbidden from coming back in all but emergencies. City’s asymmetrical system meant that in possession they were a three-man back line and out of it there were options. Cancelo might come back, but more often than not Rodri dropped into defence and Kyle Walker moved out to full-back. It was designed to put pressure on Marc Cucurella.
Marc Cucurella endured a difficult night defensively against Manchester City
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The best chances fell to Chelsea, however, and the Chukwuemeka shot that hit the post after the teenager had come on for Pulisic, forced to go off after a challenge from John Stones. Sterling had pulled up in the first minute and was replaced with Aubemeyang. As for the Premier League’s top goalscorer, Erling Haaland, he had just one good first half chance when Rodri and Ilkay Gundogan passed through Chelsea and the great Norwegian was striding away before clipping the bar with his shot.
After half-time it felt as if there were to be no further mistakes tolerated by Guardiola. The intensity was that much greater and from the right it was Mahrez who began the switch of play to the left for the goal. It was also Mahrez who arrived at the back post when Kevin De Bruyne’s ball into Grealish on the left channel opened the space for the cross.
Grealish picked his spot well but it did feel like Kepa Arrizabalaga gave up on the ball. Mahrez scored at the back post and suddenly the challenge for Chelsea had become immense. Potter responded with the three substitutions, all of them graduates of the academy: Gallagher, Hutchinson and Hall. It was an inexperienced Chelsea side that finished the game. Come next week, Potter will need to decide who he can rely on to save this season.
Chelsea vs Man City: as it happened
Source: telegraph.co.uk