Chelsea shocks City at Etihad

Jose Mourinho’ Chelsea on Monday ended Manchester City’s unbeaten run at the Etihad Stadium.
Both teams were without established names.
Fernando Torres was out for Chelsea.
More damagingly, the home side, with their unblemished home record to defend, were without South American firecrackers, Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero, and the bang in form French ace, Samir Nasri.
Injury claimed all three.
Manuel Pellegrini’s solution was to move Martin Demichelis into midfield and draft Matija Nastasic into the back four.
A ploy not unknown to his opposite number, Jose Mourinho, who similarly deployed David Luis, a central defender by trade, in his own engine room.
Cagey but combative to start, it was City who made the early running.
Aleks Kolarov fizzed a centre across Petr Cech’s goal, Yaya Toure brushed the bar with a first time shot from the edge of the box and then David Silva misconnected with a Toure pass and guided the ball wide from half a dozen yards.
A low driven effort from Ivanovic that flew through a pack and into the bottom corner.
It wasn’t great defending from the home side that had chances to clear.
Ramires had the second best chance of the opening half hour as Chelsea broke four versus one but Joe Hart worked out his angles carefully and pulled off a fine diving save.
Chelsea hit the post through Gary Cahill and City responded purposefully down the right where and Jesus Navas and Pablo Zabaleta combined to present a chance for substitute Stevan Jovetic that was spurned.
And City were grateful not to be two down at the break after Eto’o grazed the bar from a decent angle.
“Are you West Ham in disguise” taunted the visiting fans as Chelsea ended an entertaining half a goal to the good.
As the match ebbed and flowed, Silva brought out the best of Cech with a 72nd minute free kick and then went agonisingly close to a leveller from Kolarov’s low pull back.
City ended the game as they had started it, on top, but Cech again saved well from Jovetic and then Nastasic missed kicked in what was the final act of a compelling battle.