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Manchester City should by rights win the Premier League. They have the best team and most definitely the best squad.
Certainly if teams play against them like Chelsea did here then Liverpool should cease to fret and instead begin to congratulate themselves on a creditable and hard fought second place.
City played like champions here. Energetic, decisive, merciless and, of course, devastatingly attractive to watch. They scored six – four within the first half an hour – and could have had seven or eight. When they play like this, it is hard to think of a side in England or indeed Europe that could live with them.
Oleksandr Zinchenko cut the ball across the area for Raheem Sterling to sweep into the back of the net for a remarkable 6-0
The pacey attacker clenched his fists and stuck out his tongue to celebrate after scoring his second goal in the game
Sergio Aguero completed his hat-trick after coolly slotting home a penalty in the second half to put City five goals ahead
The spot kick was won after Sterling cut inside Cesar Azpilicueta and the Spaniard made a late lunge of a tackle
Aguero’s team-mates marked his hat-trick by huddling around him, as the Etihad knew the game was well and truly won
Aguero was then substituted by manager Pep Guardiola to a standing ovation, and shared a joke with his manager
But what of Chelsea? Just what was this? Was it just a bad day at work or was it a deliberate attempt to rid themselves of the unstinting demands of their coach Maurizio Sarri?
It is hard to really believe it was the latter. Chelsea have an FA Cup tie at home to Manchester United a week on Tuesday and then a League Cup Final against City the following weekend. If they really are to cut their coach off at the knees then surely they would wait until after those two season-defining moments?
So we have to put this down to incompetence then. We have to presume this was one of this disastrously perfect footballing storms when eleven abysmal performances all arrive at once to form one enormous thunderclap of horror.
It has happened to them before, of course. In their last away game at Bournemouth they had succumbed 4-0. So maybe we should not have been surprised at how awful they were. Even so, it was hard to fathom and if Sarri is to survive this debut season at Stamford Bridge then there is going to have to be one hell of an upturn between now and the middle of May.
Of the five goals scored by City here, four of them were coloured by Chelsea mistakes. They were big ones, too. Eden Hazard started it and then Ross Barkley joined in. In the second half, it was Cesar Azpilicueta’s turn.
All City could do was go back to the well and keep drinking. Sergio Aguero scored a hat-trick – his first an absolute howitzer – and is now City’s all-time leading league goal scorer with 160 goals. He has now scored as many home league goals – six – in the last eight days as Huddersfield Town have all season.
So City are back on top of the Premier League and it is where they deserve to be. Despite the horror that greeted their recent defeat at Newcastle, Pep Guardiola’s team have now won eleven of their last twelve games in all competitions. That is irresistible form.
Ilkay Gundogan’s pinpoint, finessed effort beat both the Chelsea defence and goalkeeper to put City up 4-0 before half-time
Chelsea defenders were left furiously asking questions and shifting the blame as Gundogan peeled away to celebrate
The ball came to rest in the back of the Chelsea net while scenes of dejection quickly broke out inside the penalty area
The German was hoisted into the air by defender Kyle Walker as Bernando Silva headed over to join the celebrations
Sergio Aguero used his striker’s instinct to latch onto the ball after a poor, mistimed back-pass header from Ross Barkley
Aguero nipped in and kept his eye on the ball to smash it into the back of the net for his second goal and City’s third at 3-0
Barkley was left with feelings of regret and dejection after his puzzling attempt to head the ball backwards completely failed
Caretaker Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was present in the stands, scouting out ahead of the FA Cup tie
They had, of course, lost at Chelsea in early December but anyone who watched that game will know that Sarri’s team were hanging on in a first half that their opponents dominated. Here, the feel of the early play was similar but this time Chelsea did not hang on. Instead, they formed an orderly queue and followed each other over the edge of the cliff.
Whether they are hoping that their Italian coach will follow them, only they will know. They can be a mutinous bunch at Stamford Bridge, though. Just as Antonio Conte and indeed Jose Mourinho discovered.
Certainly this was a performance bad enough to get a manager sacked. City are a ruthless, clinical side these days, capable of ripping flesh from bone like dogs. If you encourage them they will destroy you and here Chelsea opened the door to a massacre with some embarrassingly compliant football.
The first goal arrived in only the fourth minute and set the tone for what followed. Marco Alonso and Hazard appeared to abdicate responsibility for marking Bernardo Silva at a free-kick, allowing the City player to ease forward down the right on to Kevin de Bruyne’s simple pass.
Silva’s cross was only half cleared and when Raheem Sterlng crashed the ball high in to the net from ten yards, the inquest began. On reflection, it was probably Hazard’s fault. Alonso could be seen pointing to the Silva-sized gap that needed to plugged and the Belgian – it must be said – didn’t seem wholly interested.
So City had the start they needed as they looked to equal or better Liverpool’s result from the prevuous day and they immediately seemed to sense that Chelsea resembled pins waiting to be knocked over in a bowling alley.
Aguero had moments earlier unleashed a wonder-strike from long distance to crash the ball into the top corner
Once more Kepa Arrizabalaga was left looking on as the ball zipped past him and nestled in the back of the Chelsea goal
The Argentine displayed both focus and elite level technique to get over the ball and hammer it goal-bound from distance
The world’s most expensive goalkeeper Arrizabalaga had no chance as the ball sailed into the top corner for 2-0
Aguero jumped for joy as the Etihad erupted around him after doubling City’s lead and putting Chelsea on the back foot
Maurizio Sarri continued to scribble notes in his technical area but his team showed no signs of improvement on the pitch
Aguero missed a straight forward chance after Silva had been afforded the freedom of East Manchester to set him up at the far post and it seemed a horror moment, a moment when the chance to put Chelsea away early in the game had been passed up by the one player Guardiola can usually rely on above all others.
But no sooner had Guardiola recovered than Aguero was driving a sensational shot high in to the corner from 25 yards with his right foot. That was 2-0 to City and that was essentially the end of the contest right there.
Chelsea still had more to give, though. More to give to City, that is. If they were going to go under they were clearly going to do it properly and when Barkley’s cataclysmic back header dropped on to Aguero’s foot in just the 19th minute he turned to drive it in to the goal from less than six yards.
It was hard to find words for Chelsea at this juncture but the statistics helped to tell the story. Having lost 4-0 at Bournemouth in their last away game, their aggregate score over their previous 65 minutes of away football stood at 0-7. And then it got worse.
This time – in the 25th minute – the scorer was Ilkay Gundogan and it was a nice strike, curled low in to the corner with his right instep from 20 yards. Yet again, Chelsea were architects of their own troubles, though, as Antonio Rudiger failed to clear the ball properly and then Barkley appeared to sway out of the way of the shot when had he stood stock still the ball probably would have hit him on the knees.
Moments after City had initially broken the deadlock Aguero had fluffed a simple tap-in chance at the back post
Raheem Sterling had hit the back of the net for Manchester City after four minutes after converting a ball squared across
Sterling opened his body and expertly wrapped his foot around the ball to generate both power and precision in the effort
The Chelsea defence were left furious with one another as Sterling was able to ghost in and slot the ball home
The England international sprinted over to the corner where the City supporters were going crazy following the quick star
Prior to the game both sides and sets of supporters paid tribute to the late Emiliano Sala, whose body was found last week
Sarri and Guardiola greeted each other warmly in the tunnel ahead of their sides doing battle on the pitch
Chelsea were drowning and all that remained to be seen was how big was City’s appetite for proper destruction. Given that the goal difference numbers at the top of the Premier League are so tight, we expected the City tide to keep rolling in.
Inevitably, there was a slight drop in intensity before half-time and City goalkeeper Ederson saved well from Pedro and brilliantly from Gonzalo Higuain’s dipping volley.
But early in the second half Ageuro planted a header on to the bar and that signalled the start of another period of City dominance. The Argentinean’s hat-trick goal came from the penalty spot before the hour as Azpilicueta scythed down Sterling on the left side.
Much mirth will be had when footage of Mike Dean’s penalty signal spreads round the world on social media but at least the referee’s act was a decisive one.
Chelsea, frankly, could have done with a bit of that and they were static again with ten minutes left when Silva’s pass to Oleksandr Zinchenko opened Sarri’s team up like a tin can and Sterling converted the low cross from six yards.
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