Beatdown at the Bridge: City Humiliate Chelsea, 4-2

Take that, Team Terry.

For the first forty minutes Saturday afternoon, it looked like Wayne Bridge’s non-handshake of John Terry might be the highlight of a somewhat drab match: City were in a defensive posture, Chelsea were on the front foot but were not creating too much dangerous (other than Anelka, who had the beating of Micah Richards pretty much every time), and it looked like Mancini would have been happy enough with a draw.

But the tension and adrenaline bubbling under the surface of this one exploded just before halftime–not so much with Chelsea’s opener, scored by Frank Lampard after Vincent Kompany didn’t track his angled run into the box–but with Carlos Tevez’s remarkable equalizer a couple of minutes later to level the match. Tevez seized on an errant backward header, then beat both Chelsea center halves and trickled a weak shot past Hilario to level the match.

That set the stage for one of the most remarkable halves of the Premier League season. Chelsea pressed to re-take the advantage and again it was a City break that produced a goal. Gareth Barry shepherded the ball out of the back, than played a lovely pass to find Craig Bellamy on the left. Bellamy did the rest–taking it from about the midfield line all the way into the box, then beating Hilario with a shot at a tight angle.

The next quarter hour or so were very tense with Chelsea again pushing hard for an equalizer, racking up yellow cards here and there in the process. What turned the game for good was a bad mistake by Belletti, losing the ball to Gareth Barry near his own penalty area and then bumping Barry just enough to send him to ground. Penalty kick and red card was the decision–a bit harsh, but not unjustified. Carlos Tevez fired the penalty home to make it 3-1.

From then on Chelsea lived up to the well-earned reputation as a team that doesn’t handle defeat with much grace. Ballack, already on a yellow and already lucky to escape punishment for a deliberate handball, had an awful tackle on Tevez to reduce Chelsea to nine men. City in truth didn’t do enough to punish Chelsea with that advantage, though finally Shaun Wright-Phillips broke through on a counter and nicely set up Bellamy for an easy tap-in.

In injury time, Chelsea got a consolation goal when Mike Dean gave a soft penalty after Barry’s tackle on Anelka, to make the final score 4-2. An emphatic and largely unexpected victory for Manchester City that should do wonders for the team’s confidence and help quell any doubts (for now!) about the manager. City completed a league double over Chelsea for the first time in 52 years.

As to the Wayne Bridge storyline, credit to those Chelsea fans who applauded after he was subbed out on 78 minutes with a slight groin injury, shame on those who took it upon themselves to boo their former player every time he touched the ball, especially the first 20 minutes. What has Bridge done wrong in this affair? Nothing, other than stand up for his own dignity. I have avoided writing about the Bridge-Terry story because it is mostly an England team issue, but today it was a club issue. The fact that “Team Terry”-allies have been claiming that Bridge is a “bottler” for bowing out of England duty and the thoroughly ridiculous booing of Bridge ensured that was the case.

Consequently, it was sweet–as sweet as it gets– to see City’s players rally around their left back and produce an inspired performance that shoved it back in the face of Chelsea and their deservedly shamed captain.

Category: Team News