I feel really sorry for Sven. Demolition and total humiliation. A brilliant all round performance from Chelsea brought Man City back to planet earth! Chelsea was on top gear from the word go and played with such authority reminiscent of our style of the title winning seasons.

Chelsea started with a 4-3-3, Kalou and Joe Cole supporting Drogba, Lampard and Essien on either sides of Mikel. Once again we got an early goal. If we really make this a habit, it’s gonna serve us well. If it was a goalless first half, things could have been lot different based on the tactical changes by both coaches. Once again we got a early break when Lampard saw Essien working in the space behind their left back. Essien controlled a superb throughpass from Lampard and finished it with some ease. He loves those tight angles, doesn’t he?

The second goal was a piece of heaven when Lampard demanded the ball in the left midfield and unleashed the ball, which curved nicely enough to beat the central defenders and find the feet of Drogba. For anyone who thought he could not reproduce his form of the last season, he has answered enough and more. The moment Drogba got the ball in that position, there’s no other outcome than goal from an authoritative finish.

I think the match ended at halftime. When we were 2-0 up, we were good not only at attack, we were defending very strongly too. Man City could hardly construct an attack or two. The body language of the City players showed that they had conceded the match. They never thought they could score two second half goals at the Bridge against a confident Chelsea team with Carvalho, Belletti, Ferreira and Alex, who were protected by their midfield and if City come through these names they had mighty Petr Cech to beat. So, I think we had won the match by half time. For this precise reason, I thought my man of the match was Lampard. He set up those two goals and he was a constant threat creating chance after chance. He was also tracking back to help the defence with his smart tackles. His first half performance was absolutely brilliant and in my books he deserves the award today more than anyone else does, including Essien and Drogba.

The other four goals were only of academic importance. Probably, Sven made a tactical error of taking the game to Chelsea at the Bridge. Man City are flying high of late. That confidence might have made him attack Chelsea at their den, which obviously backfired. City played an open game against mentally weak Man Utd at the City of Manchester stadium and won the match 1-0. Sven might have thought it should work after all. But in the end, our unbeaten record swallowed one more opponent along the way.

For all the talk about the tennis match scoreline, our defending was brilliant and that deserves a mention. Overall, in that 90-minute period, I never thought we would concede. We defended with good awareness of the game and players like Lampard and Essien did chip in when it mattered. So even defensively, it was a very good game.

Avram Grant could not be a happier man. His team won an important match with such a scoreline. It was such a day that even out-of-form Shevchenko found the net.

In the last month we have improved in every match. The players want to be better and have shown full commitment to positive football and winning – there are no big secrets behind this. We will enjoy this but we are in the middle of the process and want to continue it. I don’t think we will win many games 6-0. Manchester City are not an easy team to beat but we made it easier. We moved like we needed to and played our football. The fans know now we are trying to play positive football.

While I’m very happy at the result and the scoreline as well, we should realise that Man City were poor. They are the #3 in the league now and all that but they played poorly. When a team beats 6-0, the losing team should have done more than one thing wrong. Of course, we would take credit for breaking their defence, but was it too difficult to break their defence? I think we were helped by their defenders with their poor positioning and not doing the basics right. Man City were very light in their defence and played like pushovers. Our midfield was given lots of time to send those perfectly weighted throughpasses that their defence could not cope with. We just needed two or three passes to pose a goal threat which talks about their defensive performance.

First goal – poor positioning, second goal – Lampard’s incredible pass, third goal – mess again, fourth goal – Joe Cole’s skill, fifth goal and sixth goal – poor defending in the midfield area. So, even if Man City had played better we would have still won but probably have score only 2 or 3 goals. Sven explains his side of the story:

We forgot how to defend. If you give a team like Chelsea space and time that will happen. It was very bad defending from our side – we have to be much better than that. It has been a good story so far this season but I’m sorry for the fans who travelled here. There were a lot of them here, they wanted to see us play good football – not see us lose like we did. People are talking about us playing good football but you have to defend and be very aggressive. If you don’t do that against a team like Chelsea this happens.

Shevchenko finally scores, that is, after fumbling an easier chance. Anyways, he is on the score sheet. By the time Kalou and Shevchenko scored, Man City were just spectators hoping for the final whistle. I’m not going to be very excited with Sheva’s goal. I want him to score those match winners, like the one he scored against the Spurs last season. Scoring the fifth or sixth goal has lesser and lesser weights. Good for him anyway.

So, what’s the final word? Fantastic game. In the league, consistency is the name of the game. It’s not the consistency of scoring but that of winning. Who’s behind the mini-revival of the Chelsea team? Is it Avram or Ten Cate or Roman himself? The way Chelsea played, I could see some Dutch influence. I don’t if it is Dutch or Israeli or even Russian as long as we can keep winning like this. Now, I’ll be a Red tomorrow as I cheer Liverpool as loudly as possible to beat Arsenal. If that happens, we’ve got a league on hand!

[tags]Chelsea, Man City, Lampard, Drogba, Shevchenko, Joe Cole, Kalou, Micah Richards, Sven Goran Eriksson, Stamford Bridge, Premier League[/tags]
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