Manchester City v Chelsea: Premier League – live!

“While Sarri deserves some blame for this, he’s very much a modern manager in that he selects the squad to put on the field and that’s about it,” rages Joe Harvey. “He doesn’t seem to have much if any input on transfers. Why isn’t Chelsea’s Director of Football/transfer committee under more fire? Who looks at this squad and decides, before the season, that a £70m keeper is the answer, when two of the three players in the front line are on the wrong side of 30? Sarri’s only inputs on this squad, I think, are Jorginho and Higuain (who despite my doubts looks quite good). Otherwise their recruitment isn’t just poor, it’s expensive and poor.”

45+3 mins: A quite ludicrous half of football. City ripped through Chelsea at will in the first 25 minutes, scored four and missed a sitter. Chelsea attacked well in the final 22 minutes, created little and scored nothing.

45+1 mins: De Bruyne curls the ball into the penalty area from a free-kick on the right, but Aguero mistimes his diving header and gets nothing on it. And was offside.

45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there will be about two minutes.

42 mins: Chelsea continue to attack, and have been excellent in the second half(ish) of this first half. Sadly they conceded four times in the first half(ish), but still.

40 mins: De Bruyne puts his team in trouble with a hopeless pass infield, straight to a dark blue shirt, though City have enough players back to cope with Chelsea’s ensuing attack.

38 mins: That, though, is a very fine shot from Higuain, who chests the ball into the air and then volleys from just outside the area. The ball was dipping towards goal until Ederson tipped it over the bar!

36 mins: Though to be fair Chelsea have had more shots so far. City have only had five: the four goals and Aguero’s ridiculous miss. Chelsea have had seven, most of them blasted by Higuain straight into the nearest defender.

34 mins: Azpilicueta’s low cross is cleared just before Alonso gets to it. The fact that both full-backs were in the final 20 yards of the pitch there illustrates Chelsea’s attacking approach to this game, which has of course been woefully unsuccessful.

32 mins: “Do you reckon David Luiz has got deja vu?” writes JR. “What an entertainer. Is it wrong that I am hoping he will begin weeping on the pitch before the half is over?” A little mean, perhaps, but understandable.

30 mins: Chelsea attack again, Higuain’s shot from Alonso’s cross being deflected behind for a corner.

29 mins: Pedro has another shot, and Ederson makes another save. This one was much easier, though, the Spaniard’s low shot from 15 yards going straight to him.

28 mins: A great chance for Chelsea, but Ederson saves! Higuain has the ball on the edge of the area, cutely backheels into Pedro’s path and he shoots at the rapidly-advancing keeper!

27 mins: Three more goals and Chelsea would drop behind Arsenal in the league on goal difference.

This is a horror show. Kepa should perhaps have done a bit better having got a good hand to Gundogan’s shot from the edge of the area, but his wrist, like most of Chelsea’s team, is just a bit flimsy.

21 mins: Chelsea have a shot! The ball falls to Barkley at the edge of the area, and he curls his effort well over the bar.

This one comes gift-wrapped by the Chelsea defence! The ball is lifted into the area, headed away by David Luiz, incomprehensibly headed right back into the danger area by Barkley and half-volleyed in by Aguero, on the edge of the six-yard box.

17 mins: Hazard nicely dummies the ball to let it run to Alonso on the left, who expects the Belgian to keep running. He doesn’t, so Alonso’s pass runs straight out of play.

He misses from two yards, and then scores from 25! Zinchenko breaks down the left, cuts inside, gets a couple of lucky bounces off Chelsea shins and eventually works the ball to Aguero, who curls a delicious shot into the far, top corner!

12 mins: David Luiz’s excellent pass through midfield finds Hazard, who spins and sets off towards goal. He gets into the area but is then forced wide, and when he shoots he’s off balance and hits a weak effort that’s easily stopped.

8 mins: What a miss by Aguero! Incredible! De Bruyne’s pull-back to Bernardo Silva is a bit behind the Portuguese player, who would have had an easy chance of his own had the pass been more accurate, but instead he controls, dances away from goal, keeps running, turns, heads to the byline and sends in a low cross, which finds Aguero just beyond the far post, with an open goal to aim at … and he misses it!

7 mins: Chelsea have approached the game very ambitiously, trying to attack City, pressing them deep in the home side’s half. Which is fine, except when they then completely fail to close them down in their own penalty area.

Chelsea fall into a deep sleep as De Bruyne prepares for a free-kick, allowing the Belgian to pass to an untracked Bernardo Silva on the right, and he has time to get into the penalty area, measure his pass, and slide the ball across goal. He was probably aiming for Aguero but it breaks to Sterling at the far post, and he slams it into the net!

3 mins: Then the ball is lifted over the City defence, Higuain runs through unmarked, and is a foot or two short of reaching it.

2 mins: Hazard gets down the left nicely and slides the ball inside to Higuain, but his shot is blocked and when it is eventually returned to him, another shot is also blocked. “’Shower Slides’, Simon, ‘Shower Slides’?” boggles George Peel. “Is that Metropolitan-speak for flip-flops?” I think they’re quite different to flip-flops, lacking the toe-dividing thong-type device, but I don’t really know what the right name for them is.

Sky inform us that Callum Hudson-Odoi was in the squad that travelled to Manchester, so his absence is simply down to Sarri not really fancying him.

The players are in the tunnel! Well, Chelsea’s players are.

A bit of managerial chatter. Firstly here’s Pep Guardiola on approaching this game like a cup final:

So the last part of the season, 11, 12 games to play. It’s important against contenders at home especially to be solid as we have been these last two seasons and try to win. Against Chelsea, Arsenal, United, big teams, it’s always a final. If you don’t play these kind of games feeling like a final it’s more complicated.

And here’s Maurizio Sarri on Chelsea’s win over City in December:

We defended very well. We played a very good match. But I have to say that we were lucky when we scored the first goal because we scored in a very difficult moment of the match for us.

“Bit of a shame not to see Hudson-Odoi in Chelsea’s squad today,” says Adam Kline-Schoder. “I’ve really enjoyed watching him when he’s been given a chance; he’s got great skills, a lot of pace, and is attack-minded, all of which are things that Chelsea fans rightly crave. Kind of a surprise that Sarri doesn’t seem to rate him, as he seems a natural fit. Do you know if he’s injured, or just not fancied today?”

He has apparently been suffering from an unspecified illness this week, which would explain his absence (or handily deliver Sarri an excuse not to use him, depending).

Here’s a glimpse inside Chelsea’s dressing room, featuring some very neat shower slides.

Oleksandr Zinchenko is the unexpected name in the City line-up. He makes his fourth Premier League start of the season, but by some margin the most consequential (the others were against Brighton (h), Bournemouth (h) and Southampton (a)). His last league minutes came at the end of December, but he played both legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Burton last month.

The team sheets are in, and these were the names upon them:

Man City: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Zinchenko, Gundogan, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Aguero, Sterling. Subs: Danilo, Sane, Silva, Mahrez, Otamendi, Gabriel Jesus, Muric.
Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Luiz, Alonso, Kante, Jorginho, Barkley, Pedro, Higuain, Hazard. Subs: Loftus-Cheek, Caballero, Kovacic, Giroud, Willian, Christensen, Emerson Palmieri.
Referee: Mike Dean.

Hello world!

So who, then, are Chelsea? Are they the team that triumphed 5-0 against Huddersfield in their last league game, or the one that crashed 4-0 at Bournemouth in the one before that? Are they the side that folded 2-0 at Arsenal in their last top-flight meeting with another member of the established top six, or the one that beat City 2-0 in the one before that?

Can they, in short, provide another twist to the developing title-chase spaghetti-tangle? With another meeting with these opponents to follow in the Carabao Cup final later this month, will they be unusually motivated by a desire to prove their collective mettle and win their individual places for that match, or will that looming Wembley date or some kind of general ennui fatally distract them?

City? Well, we know about them. “It’s a final for us,” says Pep Guardiola. “We have to play in that way.” Today’s match against Chelsea might in fact be, psychologically, more of a final than the one that will actually be a final. This is confusing.

Over the next few hours City could return to the top of the table, Liverpool will once again find themselves with a game in hand, and Chelsea will answer several questions, one way or the other. Welcome!