In a tremendous all-round display from Manchester City, it was a toss-up between Sergio Agüero and David Silva, the two central attacking players, as to who was their star performer. Agüero’s acceleration bamboozled Gary Cahill and John Terry in the opening stages, while Silva continually found pockets of space between the lines, relentlessly playing clever passes for onrushing team-mates.

Agüero and Silva’s qualities hardly came as a surprise but both were particularly prominent here – indeed, Silva created a good chance for Agüero within the opening minute, a sign of things to come. Chelsea’s poor organisation and a slightly new attacking format from City contributed to their huge influence on the game.

Chelsea were unusually open without possession, primarily because José Mourinho took the surprising decision to play Cesc Fàbregas in the deep midfield position next to Nemanja Matic. As always, Fàbregas’s poor tactical understanding caused problems: he left too much space behind him and Silva drifted laterally across the pitch into space. Matic tried to follow but could not get close enough to mark Silva out of the game.

Chelsea were simply too open between the lines, and Mourinho must have considered moving Ramires back into that midfield role to provide Matic with more support. Nevertheless, Fàbregas lasted the entire game in that role – and was not even able to compensate for his poor defensive play with moments of magic in possession.

Manuel Pellegrini deserves his share of the credit, however. In previous seasons, City have very rarely played with this much natural width, because both Roberto Mancini and Pellegrini have favoured “drifting” players on the flanks, like Silva and Samir Nasri. Here, however, City had proper dribblers on both sides: Jesús Navas on the right, trying to get down the outside of his compatriot César Azpilicueta, and the left-winger Raheem Sterling taking on the increasingly immobile Branislav Ivanovic. Therefore, City stretched the play and forced the Chelsea full‑backs out towards the touchlines, allowing Agüero and Silva more room to manoeuvre in the centre. Their movement caused constant problems, and it was fitting that Silva orchestrated the opener, with Agüero finishing – the two combining via the marauding Yaya Touré.

Many questions have been asked about Sterling’s suitability for City and in itself this was not a £49m performance. However, if his inclusion changes City’s attacking structure and allows their two best attackers more space, the knock-on effects could be even more significant than Sterling’s own contribution.

City were rarely troubled defensively. Diego Costa attempted to roam the channels but was thwarted by solid performances from Vincent Kompany and Eliaquim Mangala, who enjoyed arguably his best game for Manchester City.

Kompany continues to frustrate with his rash tackling – the booking he received for fouling Costa near the touchline was entirely unnecessary – but that was perhaps part of City’s overall strategy, winding up Costa through physical pressure. This threatened to spill over towards the end of the first half, and Fernandinho’s ugly aerial challenge was dangerously close to a red card, but it’s rare to see Costa provoked without managing to punish his tormenters with quality in the final third – he was unusually subdued, although can legitimately complain about a lack of service.

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That suggests other City players did their job effectively. At right-back Pellegrini selected Bacary Sagna rather than Pablo Zabaleta, who had previously struggled against Eden Hazard’s speed, and City rarely had problems in that zone. The left-back Aleksandar Kolarov is a less assured defender, but offered a consistent attacking threat which pushed back Willian, who had probably been Chelsea’s brightest attacking player in their two previous games.

The only problem was in the centre of midfield, where City lost compactness in the second half and replicated Chelsea’s mistake of leaving too much space between the lines. Touré continually pushed forward, while the cautioned Fernandinho was inevitably reluctant to risk a second booking. With Fabian Delph and Fernando both out injured, Martín Demichelis was summoned to play a central midfield role, and helped shut down the game by sitting solidly in front of the defence.

Mourinho protested that 3-0 was not a fair scoreline, because Chelsea mounted a fightback in the second half – but, in truth, with Agüero’s early chances City could have been 3-0 up by half-time anyway.

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