Chelsea struggling to reverse frightening freefall after capitulation to City

Manchester City (1) 3 v Chelsea (1) 1
Premier League
Matchweek 23
Talking Points
By Kaz Mochlinski at the City of Manchester Stadium
In the final stages of Chelsea’s extremely concerning capitulation at Manchester City, one of the Londoners’ favourite terrace anthems, the Madness song ‘One Step Beyond’, was roared out at the away end.
But it was not being sung by the visitors this time. Normally played at Stamford Bridge to celebrate Chelsea’s greatest wins, mainly in the Champions League, on this occasion it came from the City fans.
On either side of the away section, accompanied by the full related dance moves, the home crowd mockingly produced a noisy gauntlet for the dispirited and rapidly-departing Chelsea supporters.
“City are back! City are back!” they then chanted - before collapsing collectively into laughter. Followed by “Champions again, olé, olé!” - and more, helpless guffawing. At least the City faithful have not lost their sense of humour.
This looked to be a really significant moment in the season for the two clubs, fifth against fourth in the Premier League table, with the possibility of gaining a vital edge over a direct rival to stay in the Champions League qualifying places.
Both the Sky Blues and the Blues have been on almost-unbelievably bad runs recently, but Manchester City now appear to be gradually recovering from their temporary troubles while Chelsea still seem to be spiralling downwards.
Prior to Christmas, the Cityzens had lost nine of twelve matches in all competitions, with just one win in their nine Premier League games up until then. The season of goodwill finally brought them some glad tidings.
However, the Mancunians’ fragile mindset was again undermined in midweek away at Paris Saint-Germain, when they lost a two-goal lead to fall to a shocking 4-2 defeat. The trip to Europe also gave them 48 hours less time between games than Chelsea.
Pep Guardiola’s response was to desperately draft in reinforcements, with two new signings going straight into the starting line-up for their City debuts, and a further recent recruit being among the substitutes.
Uzbekistan’s first ever Premier League player, Abdukodir Khusanov, is not even fluent in English, and the 20-year-old gifted Noni Madueke an opening goal after only two minutes. Yet still Chelsea could not capitalise.
The key moment maybe came in the ninth minute, when Cole Palmer showed superb acceleration to get clear down the inside-right channel, but declined to take a straightforward shooting opportunity to make it 0-2.
Instead Palmer preferred to pass to Nicolas Jackson, probably to try and boost his off-field friend’s confidence, only for Nico to again demonstrate exactly why he has now gone seven league matches in a row without scoring.
It once more illustrated Chelsea’s recurring limitations without a reliable striker or goalkeeper after all their enormous spending on new players over multiple transfer windows. The rest of the team simply cannot make up for such crucial deficiencies.
Palmer continues to catch the eye, and he keeps looking to receive the ball, but he is not presently at his best after his recent ankle injury, following some hamstring and knee issues earlier in the season. Plus he cannot do it all by himself.

Enzo Maresca’s big tactical ploy was supposed to be “inverted full-backs” pushing up into midfield, but there were hardly any signs at all of that from either Reece James or Marc Cucurella against City.
The Chelsea head coach’s in-game management is also repeatedly failing to have a positive impact on his team’s performance or end-product. Nevertheless, he refused to acknowledge some disappointment at losing on coming back to his former club for the first time.
“We are making progress. We are better than one or two months ago. These moments will make us better” was Maresca’s perplexing and hardly credible view, which is completely contrary to that held by most close observers of the Blues.
And he insisted: “The plan with the club was that next season to get top four and then the season after challenge for the title. This is why I said we’re ahead of my expectation, because we spend most of the season so far in top four.”
In reality, much of what was seen from Chelsea at City was pretty poor. Admittedly, the hosts were unexpectedly brave in playing with only one defensive midfielder, at the same time as pushing both their full-backs forward at every chance.
It was a run and shot from right-back Matheus Nunes which rebounded for left-back Joško Gvardiol to score the equaliser. Gvardiol has now got five Premier League goals this season, more than any other defender.
A City goal was clearly coming, as they had the last seven successive shots in sequence. And it did not get better, as, at the end, Chelsea went 33 minutes without having a shot on goal until Madueke’s 91st-minute effort - which went out for a throw-in.
During that time, City secured the two goals which gave them the win. All their three goals came from long balls over the top, two of them by Ederson, who now has the joint-most assists by a goalkeeper in the history of the Premier League with five.
Erling Haaland got his 18th league goal of season, and the sixth in his last six matches in all competitions. Has he really had a dip in his form lately? Phil Foden then added his sixth goal in four league games.
It meant that Foden had scored in four consecutive Premier League matches for the first time in his career. And he is the top scorer in the competition in 2025 so far with six goals. But it could have been even worse for Chelsea.
Foden had hit the post with a well-struck shot early on at 0-1. Plus City’s very promising debutant Omar Marmoush had a goal disallowed for offside to spare Robert Sánchez more embarrassment after another howler.
In fact, there were a lot of parallels to Chelsea’s last game, with Wolverhampton Wanderers five days previously. The Blues took the lead in the first half, Sánchez made an awful error, and they conceded an equaliser just before half-time.
The superior side got two goals in the second half for an eventual 3-1 home win, but on Monday night that was Chelsea and on Saturday evening it was Manchester City. This time Palmer was left on his knees after losing to the club where he had developed.
Embraced by Guardiola on the pitch following the final whistle, they were the last two figures to disappear down the tunnel. Palmer will have been feeling frustrated, but with his teammates’ performances more than his own efforts.

The central defence was repeatedly cut open, with another new starting combination being used this season. And the tracking of opposition runners by Chelsea’s defensive midfielders was shockingly lacking.
One of the players in that position is among several Blues’ stars to have had reported problems in their personal lives recently, severe enough to even overshadow those of Kyle Walker, who departed City this week, partly due to such distractions.
Whatever the causes, while the Cityzens are now unbeaten in six league matches, winning four of their last five Premier League games, Chelsea are almost in freefall, with just the solitary success over Wolves this month.
That is their only victory in the last seven league encounters. And Chelsea have failed to win away in the Premier League since the crazy contest with Tottenham Hotspur seven weeks ago. At least the Blues will be back at Stamford Bridge next.
But, on another Monday matchday, Chelsea will have to face long-standing capital rivals West Ham United. And an added challenge will be provided by Graham Potter’s first return to Chelsea leading his new club.
Before then, there is still the concluding week of the January transfer window available to adjust the squad. Will Chelsea copy Manchester City’s example and strengthen to similarly good effect?
Not unlike the way the City fans mimicked ‘One Step Beyond’…
Comments