Manchester City produced a dominant display of football that ensured a 3-1 win over Chelsea on Sunday. The quality of the performance left City boss Pep Guardiola feeling like he had witnessed his record-shattering team from a couple of seasons ago, per Daily Mail.
City started on the front foot and they never gave Chelsea any breathing room. They went into halftime with a three-goal lead thanks to Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne. The hosts got a small consolation goal in second half injury time, but it was far too little and way too late.
Guardiola spoke about how the City players stuck to their plan. He also added that each department on the pitch was fantastic and that contributed to the win. This was evident especially in how the midfield and attack combined to dominate the hosts.
Despite the three goals, City would have felt they could have scored more, such was their attacking prowess on the night. They will be happy with how well they played and when the boss was asked for his opinion on this display, he told the Daily Mail:
“We had a plan, we tried to play in a certain way that we did in the past and it worked. The players were incredible, fantastic in all departments.
“We are a team that has to play in one certain rhythm. A lot of passes and, in the right moment, attack. We won Premier Leagues in that way, and we miss a little bit for many reasons this tempo, and today we got it. The way we won the League titles, it was because we were like today.”
This win has pushed the Manchester side to fifth place where they are now just four points behind the top two teams.
City, over the past few games at least, have looked reminiscent to the team that won back-to-back Premier League titles and that is good news for Guardiola.
City produced the kind of performance that will have other teams worried about facing them. They were on the money from the first minute and were relentless from there on in applying pressure. Everything they did came off and they will be very happy about how they performed.
Manchester City will take this momentum into the EFL Cup where they will be facing their local rivals, Manchester United. A win there will put them into the finals of a competition that they have taken a great liking to, utterly dominating it during the 2010s.