Chelsea laid down a Premier League title marker when they dispatched Manchester City 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium. But the win also showed Antonio Conte a few areas that still need improvement.
Chelsea were the leaders and the most in-form team in the Premier League heading into their game with Manchester City. A 3-1 win made sure the Blues remained the hottest team around and atop the standings. However, Antonio Conte got more from the game than just three points.
The game itself could not have gone any better for the Italian. Pep Guardiola’s City showed the Italian where his team’s weakness lie without fully taking advantage. Conversely, Chelsea showed Guardiola his team’s weakness, exposed them, and scored three goals to secure an impressive win.
It was like two top-level prizefighters finding holes in each other’s game, before one finally gets the knockout. The game will have taught both Guardiola and Conte a lot about their teams. But Conte was the one who ultimately won. It couldn’t have gone much better for the Chelsea boss.
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It’s no good winning without adversity. You get may get three points, but you don’t find out where your weaknesses lie. Where you go to next to improve. The game against Tottenham last week provided Chelsea with some adversity, and now the City game did the same.
City could have easily been 2-0 up when Kevin De Bruyne incredibly missed a simple chance to give the home team daylight. And the game really turned on that moment. From then, Chelsea scored an equalizer, City then had to push and became more open, and the league leaders exploited that in the final quarter of the game.
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But prior to the madness of the last 20 minutes, City made enough chances to win the game. They exploited the space in the wide areas. Even a player like Jesus Navas, who is not known for being particularly dangerous these days, had joy using his pace in behind Marcos Alonso.
Leroy Sane is still settling at City, but had his best game yet playing up against Victor Moses. Gary Cahill in particular struggled as City found the spaces around the Chelsea center-backs but just failed to finish the chances.
The Chelsea attack is ruthless. That was proven yet again in the second half as Chelsea took their chances to win the game. The Chelsea counter-attack is deadly. You cannot leave space for this Chelsea team to break on you. It’s game over if you do.
The midfield is solid, and even more so when Nemanja Matic plays instead of Cesc Fabregas. The defense, however, is where Conte now needs to focus on. The team as a whole defends well as a unit, but the back three and wing backs don’t work great as a unit just yet.
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They left too much open space in this game. Some of the players back there need replacing, like Cahill. Whereas some just need more coaching on how to play the system positionally. That will come.
But for now, Conte and the Chelsea fans can just enjoy the emphatic win. That much is deserved. Moving forward, Conte will know now that working on the defense and wing backs is the next step in making this Chelsea team even better.