A win for Manchester City and a goal for Erling Haaland. For Chelsea, it was another day of noise and confusion. With the 2024-25 Premier League season now underway, little has changed.
City manager Pep Guardiola rested half a team and still saw his team win. Only once in the last fourteen seasons has this not happened.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s new manager Enzo Maresca somehow managed to select 11 players from his 43-man squad, leaving Raheem Sterling out of the squad altogether and handing the captain’s armband to Enzo Fernandez, a player who was filmed singing racist songs about the French shortly after Argentina’s Copa América triumph in July.
Let’s not say that Maresca, who has French players in his squad and was once Guardiola’s assistant at City, doesn’t know what he wants.
In terms of the way his team played, there have been worse Chelsea performances over the course of the last few years of head-scratching policy. Maresca’s players were committed and united, but ultimately not good enough, particularly when it came to the tricky issue of creativity.
Erling Haaland found the net as Manchester City opened their league campaign with a 2-0 win away at Chelsea
Haaland celebrates with Kevin De Bruyne after his goal, scored in the 18th minute, gave City the upper hand
Mateo Kovacic scored against his old club, making it 2-0 for City in the closing stages of the match
Kovacic, who played for Chelsea between 2018 and 2023, refused to celebrate after scoring against his former club
Enzo Maresca took charge of Chelsea for the first time in a competitive match, with his team suffering a defeat
City were also not at their best. Guardiola had said they would not be because of their summer efforts. As if to prove their point, England’s Euro 2024 players Phil Foden, Kyle Walker and John Stones started on the bench.
They were good enough to win comfortably. Norway were not at the Euros, so Haaland spent the summer with his feet up. The City forward looked fresh and scored from close range in the 18th minute. When Chelsea had briefly threatened a late revival on the back of a series of attacking substitutions, former Stamford Bridge midfielder Mateo Kovacic ran too easily through midfield and scored from 25 yards with a deflection with six minutes of normal time remaining.
It was a fairly reflective scoreline at the end. Despite all their heavy spending in recent years. Chelsea still haven’t found a way to score enough goals. City, meanwhile, fielded their only signing of the summer, Brazilian Savinho, and he played brilliantly for 45 minutes before suffering a knock to the knee.
Haaland, for his part, was instantly recognisable. He needed three minutes to score his first Premier League goal of last season when City won at Burnley. Here he waited 15 minutes longer.
City were the better side in the early stages without finding their recognisable rhythm. Their two wide players – Jeremy Doku and Savinho – had threatened with some direct, positive running, but there were no clear-cut chances.
Often, though, Haaland only needs one and here he took advantage of Chelsea’s indecisive defending to put the reigning champions ahead.
Doku had started on the right but had had no fun against Spain’s Euro 2024 winner Marc Cucurella and had switched to the left after fifteen minutes. It was the Belgian’s ball to Bernardo Silva that initially caused Chelsea problems, as centre-back Levi Colwill was pulled slightly out of position as he tried to close the situation down. This meant that when Silva quickly passed the ball to Haaland, Cucurella was left exposed. Strength and timing in the tackle were required, but the Chelsea left-back produced neither and Haaland was able to take control and lift the ball over goalkeeper Robert Sanchez and into the net.
For Chelsea, a difficult afternoon was made even more difficult. While the crowd chanted for exiled midfielder Conor Gallagher, there was no shortage of trouble on and off the pitch.
Nicolas Jackson came close to scoring for Chelsea against City but his effort was saved by goalkeeper Ederson
Pep Guardiola’s team have secured a victory as he hopes to oversee what would be a remarkable fifth consecutive league title
It was an encouraging start to the season for Guardiola’s hugely talented team who managed to secure all three points
Pedro Neto made his Chelsea debut when he came on as a substitute in his team’s 2-0 defeat to City
Cole Palmer battles for possession with Manchester City winger Jeremy Doku, with the Chelsea winger facing his old club
Chelsea’s footballing response was slow. Kevin de Bruyne fired a low shot wide and Savinho passed back to Kovacic, whose effort was blocked. Chelsea were not lacking in zeal, but for the first half hour at least, they could not gain enough possession or territory to establish a platform. At the base of the home side’s midfield, Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia played together for the first time, but even that was not enough.
There were a pair of penalties for Chelsea – both correctly waved away by referee Anthony Taylor – with Nicolas Jackson rolling the ball into the net after City keeper Ederson had saved a low shot from Cole Palmer. Jackson, unfortunately for him and his team, was about six inches offside when Palmer took his shot and the celebration died in Chelsea’s throat.
Palmer was his team’s best player in the first half. Stationed on the right in the position where Raheem Sterling started last season, it is perhaps no wonder that Maresca sees little future for the older man at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea at least reached half-time with an increasingly important role in the game. City were the main threat. Their passing was sharper and their running away from the ball more intelligent. But Chelsea’s more direct style of football at least kept them in touch and they will not have been disheartened to note that Savinho did not reappear for the second half. He was a thorn in their side until he was knocked on the knee in the 40th minute. The 20-year-old was replaced by Phil Foden.
City were the first to threaten in the second period, however, when Haaland drew a flying save from Sanchez with a curling left-footed strike from inside the penalty area. It was a good chance, but a fairly routine save to deny a shot that was fired too close to the keeper.
Maresca then tried to freshen things up and find another way into a game that City had failed to steal from them. Pedro Neto, signed from Wolves for £50m in the summer, was sent through and almost got through to Fernandez’s low cross to the far post. Neto looked set to score with almost his first touch, but young City full-back Rico Lewis reached the ball just ahead of him.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, signed from Maresca’s old club Leicester, also made his Premier League debut early on for Chelsea. The 18-year-old Spaniard Marc Guiu also made his debut for this team.
But before that, Jackson came devilishly close to equalising. A loose ball on the edge of the box was headed back towards goal by Lavia and when Jackson passed the ball from six yards, Ederson did a great job of standing tall and holding the ball up with both hands.
Proof then that City needed a second goal and with fifteen minutes to go they hadn’t really come close to scoring it. At this stage Chelsea were matching their opponents in the penalty area but were struggling to create clear-cut chances. That was perhaps the most important difference.
City were not at their best. Not by a long shot. But they had been determined, and that threatened to be enough. And when Kovacic found Caicedo and Fernandez too easy in midfield with six minutes to go, he unleashed a shot that deflected past Sanchez via touches off Colwill’s chest and the goalkeeper’s left post.