I think that Chelsea probably had their worst fears confirmed as soon as the match kicked off. City tore into them, moved the ball quickly and, most importantly, ran the ball straight at (through?) them from deep, most notably Ya Ya but also notably Nasri and Milner as a prelude to "death by a thousand triangles" when we got to their box. Clichy set the tone in the first few minutes with a barnstorming run. I bet Chelsea were a sight more frightened after 10 minutes than they had been before the kick off. I don't think they showed us too much respect, so much as they had to cling on in the face of some scintillating football. Goals, however, do change games and when Ba scored they had no choice but to "go for it", Luis became virtually another central attacker and City had several clear breaks which we wasted. In the end it was Aguero and Tevez doing to Chelsea what they had done to United which won us the game.
