Manchester City ended Chelsea's 100 per cent start to the season with a hard-fought 1-0 win over the champions at Eastlands.
City prove title credentials with win over champions
Manchester City ended Chelsea's 100 per cent start to the season with a hard-fought 1-0 win over the champions at Eastlands.
Carlos Tevez maintained his fine recent record against Chelsea with the only goal of the game just before the hour mark.
The Argentine ace, who scored in both games against Carlo Ancelotti's side last term, picked up a pass from Yaya Toure just inside the City half and ran unchallenged against a retreating Chelsea defence before firing a low shot through Ashley Cole's legs in off the inside of the post.
In a game of few chances the closest Chelsea came to scoring was when Branislav Ivanovic struck the woodwork in the first half.
It was slightly strange that the build-up to a game between the Premier League's biggest spenders should be centred around respective injury problems.
Yet that is exactly how it turned out, Ancelotti claiming he had just 12 fit players, which was one more than Mancini.
Defensively, City are struggling with neither Joleon Lescott nor Jerome Boateng - who did make his debut as a late substitute - considered fit enough to start.
And once Wayne Bridge had failed a pre-match fitness test on a thigh injury it was anticipated would keep him out for another fortnight anyway, Mancini went for 19-year-old Belgian Dedryck Boyata, normally a centre-half, to make only his fourth league appearance.
Boyata rewarded his manager with a solid contribution to an obdurate defensive performance from City.
Only once were the hosts opened up properly, and that had nothing to do with the teenager.
In fact it was Tevez who drifted away from Florent Malouda as he anticipated a return pass to Didier Drogba, who had just taken a corner on the Chelsea left.
Woodwork
Tevez's movement gave Malouda the space to curl a deep cross to the far post, where Alex nodded it back to Ivanovic.
The Serbian had two goes at putting Chelsea in front. The first came bouncing back off the bar, giving him a second header to go for, this time Joe Hart making a comfortable save.
Apart from that, both goalmouths were largely underused.
Knowing this was their biggest test of the season so far and without Frank Lampard to drive them forward from midfield, Chelsea were content to play within themselves, keep a fairly rigid shape and let City expend their energy trying to break them down.
For their part, the home side failed to get sufficient support to Tevez, who worked incredibly hard up front on his own but was limited to speculative long-range efforts.
Under such circumstances, it was hardly a surprise it began to get a bit tetchy and Pablo Zabaleta's booking for a reckless sliding tackle on Ivanovic gave way to a period of play scarred by physical confrontation.
The first two minutes of the second period produced as much intense action as there had been in the whole of the first.
After Hart had pushed a curling Nicolas Anelka shot away from danger, Michael Essien should have done far better with the near-post corner than send his header sailing over the bar after being picked out completely unmarked.
City responded with their first meaningful assault on the Chelsea goal, which forced Cech to make a decent low save to deny Silva.
It proved to be the prelude to the deadlock being broken. Yaya Toure and the nippy Silva deserve mentions for their short pass and running off the ball respectively after Ramires had conceded possession just inside the City half.
Own work
The rest of it was all Tevez's own work as he ran ferociously at the visitors' defence, jinked to his right, then blasted a shot through Cole's legs and into the net off the inside of Cech's right-hand post.
Twice Essien tried to level from long range. Twice his radar was way off and the ball sailed over.
Alex glanced a header wide after Boyata had marred his effective performance by getting booked for chopping down Yuri Zhirkov, but with Cole also belting a shot into the side-netting, Chelsea ran out of ideas.
After beating Chelsea twice last season as well, City are rather getting to like this.
| Manchester City |
Team Statistics |
Chelsea |
| 1 |
Goals |
0 |
| 0 |
1st Half Goals |
0 |
| 4 |
Shots on Target |
4 |
| 2 |
Shots off Target |
10 |
| 4 |
Blocked Shots |
4 |
| 3 |
Corners |
4 |
| 11 |
Fouls |
13 |
| 2 |
Offsides |
1 |
| 2 |
Yellow Cards |
3 |
| 0 |
Red Cards |
0 |
| 82.4 |
Passing Success |
87.9 |
| 37 |
Tackles |
20 |
| 83.8 |
Tackles Success |
55 |
| 43 |
Possession |
57 |
| 50.2 |
Territorial Advantage |
49.8 |
|
