Enzo Maresca has reason to be concerned, Man City’s young guns shine and Tosin Adarabioyo has a mistake in him – FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED after Man City beat Chelsea
Erling Haaland enjoyed a fruitful evening at the Ohio Stadium on Saturday night, with the Norwegian striker scoring a hat-trick to give Manchester City a 4-2 win over Chelsea.
The result ensures Pep Guardiola’s team will not leave the United States without a win, having lost their previous three games against Celtic, AC Milan and Barcelona.
Haaland got the Cityzens off to a flying start, scoring a penalty in the first three minutes of the game, before scoring again two minutes later. Oscar Bobb made it 3-0 in the 55th minute, before Haaland added another.
Although the London club subsequently fought back with both Raheem Sterling and Noni Madueke scoring, the disappointing performance from Enzo Maresca will have raised alarm bells.
Mail Sport’s Kieran Gill shares five things we learned from Chelsea’s defeat to Man City in this article.
Alarm bells are ringing for Maresca
What worried Chelsea was how much stronger their starting line-up was than Manchester City’s. Without Cole Palmer and Marc Cucurella, they were practically their first team. But Maresca’s men were once again the masters of their own undoing. After conceding goals playing from the back against Wrexham and Celtic this pre-season, they found themselves 2-0 down within five minutes after a series of blunders. First, Tosin Adarabioyo passed the ball to Jack Grealish, leading to Erling Haaland winning a penalty. Then Moises Caicedo made a mistake by giving Haaland possession, allowing him to score their second. The same theme unfortunately continued in the second half, as City scored twice more. Even if this is just pre-season, Maresca must be worried about Chelsea, who face City in their Premier League opener in two weeks’ time. For their sake, you hope they get those mistakes out of their system as soon as possible.
McAtee looks good
James McAtee looked in his element at times, such as when he skinned Mykhailo Mudryk to create one chance in the first half. Chelsea have been tracking the 21-year-old, who was previously on loan at Sheffield United, for some time. He’s a good player, and Pep Guardiola wanted to use this pre-season to get a better look at McAtee before making a decision on his immediate future. Chelsea have also been linked with Oscar Bobb, who can only have impressed them more here when he scored City’s third goal.
‘Trev deserved better’
There was a Chelsea fan with a homemade banner that read: ‘Trev deserved better’. This is a reference to Trevoh Chalobah, who was left at home while the club were busy selling their own centre-back. Chelsea couldn’t resist going for Adarabioyo in the summer, given that he was available on a free transfer. But the 26-year-old does have a flaw in him. As well as his mistake in City’s opening goal, he later acted far too casually when running back to collect a ball, allowing McAtee to sneak in and steal it before testing Robert Sanchez.
RB Leipzig stars reunited
Christopher Nkunku and Josko Gvardiol both played together for RB Leipzig and they caught up well between their training sessions at Lower.com Field on Friday. Here at Ohio Stadium, they faced off. But for the first time this pre-season, Nkunku was unable to score. There was one instance when he outwitted Gvardiol to latch onto a brilliant pass from Enzo Fernandez, but City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega refused to let the ball slip through his legs. Nkunku is not yet fully fit but says he is working towards it as he hopes for a big season in a Chelsea shirt after last year’s injury-plagued campaign.
Lavia, the bright spot on a difficult day
One positive for Chelsea is how impressive Romeo Lavia has been in pre-season, often playing a crucial role in their fine display. It will be interesting to see how big a role he plays in the upcoming campaign, and it was his brilliant ball past Noni Madueke that completed this 4-2 goal. Chelsea flew to Atlanta after this game to use the training facilities there before turning their attention to Real Madrid in Charlotte on Tuesday. It may seem like Chelsea have chosen an odd schedule for their tour of the United States, but there is method to the madness. Firstly, the opponents they have faced have gotten stronger (Wrexham, Celtic, Club America, City, Real). Secondly, they have designed it so that the time zone difference would get smaller as the tour progresses, minimising jet lag on their return to London.