Chelsea 0-2 Manchester City: No Rodri, no problem as the champions spoil Maresca’s debut party

Manchester City kicked off their fourth consecutive Premier League title defence with a win, with goals from Erling Haaland and Mateo Kovačić sealing a relatively routine victory at Stamford Bridge.

Without Rodri they weren’t quite in as much control as usual, but City were more than good enough to justify their victory. The result means Pep Guardiola has thwarted former disciple Enzo Maresca’s plans for an immediate Premier League win.

As it happened

Football is entertainment. It always has been, it always will be. But the Premier League takes that to a new level. Every game is a polished product, twists and turns are guaranteed to the extent of a thriller, players on the pitch are deified and thrust into superstardom in much the same way as Hollywood film stars.

So, it’s fun to imagine there are scriptwriters deciding every act of the performance. For said imaginary writers, there was no more fascinating an opening episode of the new season than Chelsea’s hosting of Manchester City. There were stories everywhere: Pep Guardiola facing a former prodigy in Enzo Maresca; Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia taking on the club which raised them; Erling Haaland aiming for yet another opening day goal in his 100^th City performance; Marc Cucurella looking to fulfil his self-adorned role of making his Norwegian counterpart ‘tremble.’ The question was which story the writers would choose to pursue.

Let’s start with Cucurella. If you missed it, he won the EUROs in the Summer and he did so magnificently. Alejandro Grimaldo went unbeaten in an entire domestic season with Bayer Leverkusen, but it was the Chelsea man who took the Spanish left back spot and he was imperious. With the trophy lifted, he started singing his own new song. The contents of this tune are simple: he drinks Estrella, he eats paella, he makes Haaland tremble.

Seeing as he could neither drink mass-produced alcohol nor eat Iberian dishes in his opening Premier League fixture, he’d have to settle for making Haaland tremble. 18 minutes into the game, the two met shoulder to shoulder for the first time. Unfortunately for Cucurella, this meeting came mere yards in front of the Chelsea goal. Even more unfortunately, there was only one person trembling and it wasn’t Erling Haaland.

The striker had barely touched the ball at this point. Both sides had sparred for the best part of 20 minutes, neither able to find a killer blow of any description. But this time was different. Jérémy Doku did what he does best and drove down the left. He found Bernardo Silva, who needed only one touch to take the ball into the path of Norway’s answer to Ivan Drago. Once on the ball, he had one more challenge before he could take a shot: Marc Cucurella. But this is Erling Haaland we’re talking about. Shrugging off defenders is his bread and butter, so that’s exactly what he did. The Spaniard was brushed aside, no issues to be had, and Haaland slotted home.

That was his fifth goal in three opening day games in the Premier League. 100 appearances for Manchester City. With that latest edition, he made it 106 goal contributions. Moreover, he certainly didn’t tremble.

This wasn’t quite the champions at their best, though. No Rodri meant no lynchpin, and without him there was a slight lack of control. Possession stayed fairly even throughout. Delicate patterns of link-up play were regularly disrupted by dodgy touches or a strong press. Even Ederson had a moment of uncharacteristic sloppiness, spilling Cole Palmer’s 44^th minute shot into the path of a perennially offside Nicolas Jackson, who scored anyway but might as well have had his eyes on the linesman the whole time.

But that doesn’t mean they were bad. Manchester City at 80% capacity are a better football team than most at the max, so an overpopulated and fledgling Chelsea team were forced to work very hard to contain them. Robert Sánchez had to make terrific flying saves to deny Doku and Haaland. Enzo Fernández and Christopher Nkunku desperately pleaded for penalties which never came. Cucurella found himself spinning into a daze to try – often in vain – to contain a blistering Savinho.

That was the first half anyway. The second wasn’t entirely different, but Chelsea did begin to find their stride. With Savinho making his league debut in the first half, Maresca fought fire with fire; Pedro Neto, Marc Guiu, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Renato Veiga all came on for their first bouts of Premier League football in Chelsea blue.

One was involved immediately. Enzo Fernández worked himself some space on the right, fired a ball through the corridor of uncertainty towards Neto, but Rico Lewis tracked back to slide the danger away.

Just past the hour mark, they had their best chance. Nkunku looped a teasing header into the area for Jackson to latch onto, but his volleyed effort was slap bang in the middle of Ederson’s goal. He didn’t even have to move for it to cannon off his midriff and out of play. Either corner and Chelsea would’ve been celebrating – but that’s the difference between an Erling Haaland and a Nicolas Jackson.

For their part, City were to be denied their own certain goal less than five minutes later, but in their case it was Anthony Taylor who muted celebrations. De Bruyne whipped the ball into Haaland, and the result seemed inevitable. Those pesky scriptwriters love a subversion of expectations though, so instead of making contact with the ball he made contact with Levi Colwill’s shin. Lewis blasted home the loose ball but it didn’t matter. The whistle was blown and Haaland was booked for his troubles.

The scriptwriters weren’t done just yet. With less than ten minutes left to play, they had storyline to address: the former players at their old clubs. Mateo Kovačić and Kevin De Bruyne were facing their former sides while Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia were face to face with the club which raised them. For a satisfying resolution to the tale, one of them had to do something big.

That man was Kovačić. Six years to the day he made his Premier League debut in a Chelsea shirt, he was back with a point to prove. With less than ten minutes to play, he turned on a sixpence in the heart of the pitch and drove forwards. He does that all the time; he’s a tremendous ball-carrier. What he doesn’t do as often is fire in a goal at the end of one of those runs, but today was a special occasion. So, reaching the edge of the area, he wound up to shoot and curled a lovely effort into the near post. Sánchez should have saved it but he didn’t.

The Croatian has no malice towards his former employers. He didn’t really celebrate. But his goal was the clincher. City rounded out the game as they do best. They kept the ball, stayed positive, and hammered one more nail into the coffin.

Chelsea are left uncertain. Four players debuted today and too many to count are left wondering what their role will be in this new-look side. There was no Raheem Sterling, no Noni Madueke, no Tosin Adarabioyo. Enzo Maresca’s start to life in the Premier League was a baptism of fire, so no need to ring alarm bells just yet. But this was a game which raised more questions than it answered.

For City, it was a unique case of no Rodri, no problem. They weren’t at their brilliant best, but a win in second gear is a win. What they might look like once they pick up the pace is quite frightening. They couldn’t win five in a row, could they? On this evidence, they very well could.

The lineups

CHE: Sánchez; Cucurella, Colwill, Fofana, Gusto; Lavia, Caicedo, Fernández; Nkunku, Palmer, Jackson

MCI: Ederson; Gvardiol, Dias, Akanji, Lewis; Kovačić, Bernardo; Doku, De Bruyne, Savinho; Haaland