Pep Guardiola won the game against Graham Potter just four days ago at Stamford Bridge, and after doing it away from home, the most logical thing was that he would not disappoint at the Etihad Stadium. We saw changes in both teams, but the rotations at Manchester City do not seem like rotations.
Few teams have as deep a squad as Manchester City: having relief players like Riyad Mahrez and Manuel Akanji and leaving Erling Haaland on the bench is a luxury that only this team can afford.
The Citizens took advantage from minute one of all the problems of the Blues, who today are a team that lives sunk in a deep crisis. They are combining hunger with the desire to eat, because apart from the injuries to Sterling, Pulisic, Kanté, Fofana and Reece James, we must add that they are a team without identity.
Possibly his moment is similar to the embarrassing situation that Manchester United lived before the arrival of Ten Hag. And when you put together a team that is failing, with a team like City, who are cruising, the result is a close game in the first half.
First it was Mahrez with a free-kick goal to remember. Kepa could only watch as he cleaned the cobwebs from the Etihad goal. And immediately afterwards Havertz awarded a silly penalty for a handball in a corner. In half an hour the game was resolved, but before reaching the equator Foden put the icing on the cake.
Guardiola’s men stretched out the field as much as possible while Chelsea ran after the ball like a chicken without a head, and in one of the classic association plays of the skyblues the sentence came. Mahrez at the edge of the end made it 4-0 from eleven meters.
Chelsea is out of the third round of the FA Cup for the first time since the 1988/89 season.
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