Premier League highlights: Manchester City made it 12 wins in a row in the Premier League by beating Chelsea 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium, continuing their march to the title. Man City now moves 13 points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table, surely ending the Blues’ title hopes.
Very little was to be seen throughout the 90 minutes. There were very few possible changes that could be converted. Both the teams combined only 7 shots on target, from which 6 were taken by Manchester City.
Chelsea were too weak offensively to win the match. City took that weakness to their side and were able to score the only goal of the match. Kevin De Bruyne was the man responsible for the goal.
The Belgian fended off a challenge from Kante before curling a strike from 20 yards past Kepa. Cancelo worked the ball into space for the City captain and he just had the strength to avoid being felled by Kante. De Bruyne continued his surge towards the edge of the box before whipping a right-footed effort into the bottom-right corner.
Manchester City has won each of their last 12 Premier League games. It’s the ninth run of 12+ successive victories in the competition’s history, with the Citizens now responsible for four of those (and all under Pep Guardiola).
This was the 50th Premier League meeting between Manchester City and Chelsea – having won just three of the first 25 (12%), the Citizens have won 13 of the last 25 between the sides (52%).
Chelsea failed to register a single shot in the first half of this match, the first time they’d failed to record one in a single half of Premier League football since May 2018 (first half vs Newcastle).
Pep Guardiola after asking if his side deserved the win:
“Absolutely. The way we played, everything we have done. We can not forget we played the European champion, they are incredible. You try to find spaces, but they are not there.
They were waiting for a transition to punish us, but we won from a transition. We created enough chances. The team were incredible, brilliant. We won, what we have done, we have won it together.
Kevin De Bruyne is world-class but humble with the humility to do everything for the team. I want more of him because I know he can do it. I am so satisfied for him. He has everything. He knows what he can do. His mum and dad have to be so proud.”
Thomas Tuchel on the loss:
“The result is disappointing, but this can happen when you play at City. I thought we deserved a draw, we defended very well. We did not allow big chances. We were not under so much pressure. Performance-wise, this is OK.
The commitment, I am absolutely OK. A draw would be a fair result but we don’t have it. We have won games like this against City, so it feels very different! We had eight or nine offensive transitions but had zero touches in the box. That was a big problem today, the performance of our front players. A lack of position, timing, and composure.
We lost too many balls too easily. Romelu Lukaku sometimes needs to do the service, he is included in this, he had many ball losses in very promising circumstances, he had a huge chance. Of course, we want to serve him, but he is part of the team, and with the performance up front, we can do much better. We will never give up, but if City keeps winning every game, nobody can catch them.”
