I saw the match, I've watched the videos and I've read the papers and I'm "fed up to the back teeth of "Mourinho masterclasses" and "Mourinho's tactical nous" because I saw nothing of either. For the biggest part by far of yesterday's match Mourinho and Chelsea had little say in where the game was played. Pellegrini and City were the ones who had learned from last seasons matches (there were two!) at the Etihad with Chelsea and followed the plan which had neutered them in the cup - you keep them with their backs to our goal and don't let them turn. Whether they liked it or not they defended the 18 yard line, tucked in and scrapped because we gave them no choice - they simply could not get the ball, keep it and play. They defended exceptionally well but not because they wanted it that way. Our pressing game was energetic and excellent, though Fernandinho's performance did suffer after his yellow; Ya Ya's didn't and he was excellent from start to finish. Vinnie looked like the best central defender in the world, which isn't surprising since that's exactly what he is, and Mangala looked like he was in his tenth season here rather than his first match. But the real star was James Milner who was running harder at the end than he was at the beginning: he looked as though he was really warming to the task by the 94th minute, but it was the quality of his contribution even more than its energy that impressed. If Chelsea were playing on the break it was literally so, because they managed one in the entire 94 minutes, though it was of the highest quality, but against ten men. Even after the sending off City had the majority of the possession and after the equaliser looked the only side likely to go on and win.
The downsides were that Terry and Cahill also performed to the highest standards and Edin and Sergio had as fruitless an afternoon as Costa. It has to be said that they had few set pieces to make anything of and we were back to the days when a corner for us was a real threat. David's delivery was awful and I can't see why Kolorov doesn't take more of our corners. For the second successive home match we conceded directly from a corner to us. For the third successive match we have serious grievances about the refereeing to the point where you have to explore questions of agendas. Ya Ya scythed down against Stoke, Wilshere's handball at the Emirates, (Benatia's kneeing of Silva) and Costa's clear (bookable) foul on Dzeko and Ivanovic's studs on Ya Ya's calf. These are just the "penalty" non-awards but we can go further and explore the question of "consistency". It seems strange to say the least that a side enjoying some 70% of possession emerges from that phase of the game with 4 yellows to 2. The argument was that the four yellows were "what the rules say" and that is perhaps true - but why are the "rules" only applied to City? Why did Terry get nothing for kneeing Sergio after the ball had gone? Why did the smiling, nice boy Cesc get nothing for two clear bookables, and Nastasic (I think) was booked for kicking the ball away when he got nothing for doing to Silva what Silve had been booked for doing to Willian.
So, I was really rather tetchy when I watched those disgraceful highlights on Match of the Day, where all the discussion centred on "the happy/chosen one, tactical genius and by appointment to Her Majesty parker of the bus, the penalty incidents were not shown or discussed and Zaba was roundly condemned for his twitter by those two by appointment to Her Majesty keepers of the metropolitan moral conscience took glee for pointing out that, "though a bit soft" his sending off was "technically within the rules" but were "not having that" when Zaba expressed surprise that Costa had stayed on, meaning, presumably, that garroting is "technically" at least a red card offence.
