Premier League: Manchester City weathered Chelsea's early onslaught before gradually working up field in 2-1 win

Defending Premier League champions Manchester City eked out a result against Chelsea, in a top-four clash. The match ended 2-1 in favour of the citizens with goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez, nullifying the strike from Chelsea’s N’golo Kante. The result means Pep Guardiola’s team hopscotches over Chelsea to the third position with 28 points from 13 matches while the London-based club drops to fourth with 26 points.

Prior to kick-off, both managers were aware that Liverpool have maintained an eight-point advantage between themselves and second-placed Leicester City with a last-gasp win at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park.

The added initiative showed from the kick-off at the City of Manchester Stadium. In the opening exchanges, the game took on a guise of an intensive, life-sized foosball match. All signs pointed to a draw akin to a crate of fireworks going off at a fireworks warehouse. But as we winced and plugged our ears, gleefully anticipating a biggish boom, it fizzled into a game of near-hits and half-chances that didn’t do itself the glory it deserved. If the constellations had aligned, the game could have ended as 4-4 instead. To understand the nature of play, let’s first have a look at nature.

Cat and Mouse? No, a Scarlet Kingsnake, Venus Flytrap and The Art of War There are many kinds of biomimicry occurring in the wild. Batesian mimicry is when a harmless mimic, like a Scarlet Kingsnake, poses as the uber poisonous South American Coral Snake. In Mertensian mimicry, a deadly predator, say, a Venus Flytrap, poses as a flower. This ties in with Sun Tzu’s teachings in Art of War, a manual for strategic warfare written during 500 BC, a bestseller for over 2500 years. It says, “If you are weak, act as if you are strong. If you have strength, act as if you are feeble.”

Chelsea adopted the first part of the saying. Throwing waves of men forward early on, away from home, at an enemy’s base, they unsettled the odds. The highline adopted by Chelsea manager Frank Lampard allowed an unrelenting barrage that came to fruition in the 21st minute. A one-two instigated deep within their own midfield by Jorginho, shook him off his marker and his shadow. A floated through ball into the box met the arching run of midfield dynamo Kante.

Such was the momentum of the Chelsea midfielder, that wingback Benjamin Mendy had his choices made for him: let his French compatriot run through on goal, or upend him and give away the penalty. The bodywork put in by Kante meant the ball was shielded from prying boots.

A sense of alarm in that split second made Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson rushed towards the edge of the box. What followed was a nutmeg goal by Kante.

Goalkeeping pundit, David Preece called this habit of the Brazilian number 2, “the last chink” in his armour. “His all-round game has improved this year but he’s still overly keen to engage in situations that either favour top-class opponents or his defenders.”

It appeared that Chelsea’s exaggerated offensive play was paying dividends. It was only the second time in his managerial career in England that Guardiola’s side were losing in the possession stakes. Chelsea were at one point commanding nearly 60 percent of the ball. The only other time that happened was their match against Liverpool at home last season. Coincidentally, the result of that was 2-1 in Manchester City’s favour, too. A look at the second part of the aforementioned saying of Sun Tzu’s will clarify that this coincidence is very much contrived.

Manchester City, for the majority of the match, played like the away team, and with good reason. Weathering much of Chelsea’s early onslaught, City’s backline progressed up the field incrementally in 20-minute periods. At one point in the 70th minute, their centerback, Fernandinho joined De Bruyne’s midfield line, but well before that, the goals came.

Being sucked into exposing their midfield, the hosts gave Frank Lampard a taste of his own tactics. Guardiola instructed his men to launch balls upfield at the first indication of an outlet.

29th minute: Fernandinho pickpocketed Tammy Abraham in the centre-circle. An instinctive forward pass found De Bruyne at the edge of the box, who doubly wrong-foots the retrieving Chelsea backline (now scattered), drops his shoulder, send the entire defence one way before firing a long drive which took a deflection off Kurt Zouma before going into the back of the net.

37th minute: The ball picked up from another Chelsea counter that left way too many bodies forward, found Riyad Mahrez on the right. The Algerian slinked in between Emerson and Matteo Kovacic and fires another goal that nestled into the left corner of the net.

VAR: The Angles Do Not Add Up Between the two City goals and the final whistle were a assortment of half-chances, blocks, crucial saves, penalty shouts, and most dramatically, a disallowed goal in the 93rd minute. VAR intervened and undid a Raheem Sterling goal deeming it offside to the bemusement of everyone associated with the home side.

The methods applied by VAR to rule out hairline offside goals has come under heavy scrutiny, and rightly so: Using a 2D line on footage fed by a camera at least 50 meters away, and from a height, begs to question the legality of the angles being used to offset it. Objectivity is at subjectivity’s mercy with VAR and those who preside over it. Would the decision be any different had that goal been City’s equaliser?

Thankfully, Manchester City and Chelsea had enough quality between themselves to give match-goers and viewers their money’s worth in spite of VAR. Any other day, it could have been totally different, and more than half of the words in this match report would have been spent cribbing about it.