The Premier League game between Manchester City and Chelsea at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday Dec 5 2009.
Remember that poster, Welcome to Manchester? It was sky-blue, and dominated by the face of Carlos Tévez, the City summer signing grinning as if in mockery of his United past.
A record crowd of over 48,000 at the City of Manchester Stadium watched the tireless Argentinian direct all his derision at Chelsea with a winning free kick that arrested Man City’s run of seven straight draws and stopped their opponents’ title charge, however briefly, in its tracks.
Chelsea had not conceded a league goal for nearly nine hours until this collision with Mark Hughes’ well-drilled, well-equipped team, which seemed to treat the loss of 14 points in seven games as a trifling irritation. All that has changed for City with this priceless scalp.
Hughes has worked a familiar trick, acting with supreme patience under the scrutiny that he was about to be sacked by Sheikh Mansour, before delivering the emphatic reply on the pitch.
He had a lot to thank Shay Given for, after the Irishman pulled off the rarity of a penalty save from Frank Lampard.
It has not been the best week for Carlo Ancelotti, humbled in the Carling Cup by Blackburn as a result of an under-strength selection and found out again here, even when he had fielded his strongest side. But even Didier Drogba could produce qualities to match the energy and determination of Tévez. The worry for City arrived late, when Wayne Bridge had to be carried off on a stretcher after a bad tackle by Juliano Belletti.
There were saving graces for Chelsea. Nicolas Anelka, too often eclipsed by Drogba, illustrated last night how subtly his abilities dovetailed with those of the Ivorian, timing his movement to perfection and hounding Joleon Lescott with invariable success. Deco, too, was ceaselessly creative in his lone role behind the front two, at one stage producing a back-heel in expectation of a final touch from Drogba that did not come.
Chelsea’s breakthrough, though, sprang more from luck than good judgment as an unmarked Drogba floated a ball across goal for Branislav Ivanovic, who shot straight at Shay Given. The rebound also fell fortuitously at Given’s feet but at that point the Ireland goalkeeper was out of reprieves, as another parry hit only the back of Adebayor before looping in.
Lescott was plainly at fault, a point sure to invite further debate as to whether he has been any kind of replacement at centre-back for Richard Dunne. Robinho was characteristically anonymous throughout this game, supporting the notion put about by German great Franz Beckenbauer that the Brazilian would be more at home in a circus, so patently do his talents not conform to a team ethic.
But City did not lose heart. Micah Richards rose high in an effort to dispatch a fine corner from Gareth Barry, while Wayne Bridge was even emboldened to try a long shot against his former employers.
Chelsea, to give them their due, defied assumptions that they were mere automata, with Frank Lampard, Deco and Ashley Cole displaying the neatest interplay, which helped form a seamless supply chain down the left. The problem was at the back, where Ricardo Carvalho was being outwitted by Barry and Shaun Wright-Phillips given licence to make plenty of inroads.
Conditions were treacherous in the steady rain, and one shove by Anelka sent Richards sprawling several yards across the slippery surface. Petr Cech’s instincts were similarly all over the place in the build-up to City’s equaliser. Coming to make an extravagant punch, the Chelsea goalkeeper was nowhere near it, leaving Carvalho to put the ball out for the telling corner.
Wright-Phillips, rushing in, angled a pass brilliantly into the path of Adebayor, who pounced to convert from close range. Hughes threw a jubilant punch on the touchline, but Chelsea’s complaint was that Richards had handled. Replays suggested that it was hardly an infringement on the scale of Thierry Henry’s.
Chelsea were in the unusual position of finding themselves physically outmuscled, as a crunching tackle by Nigel de Jong on Deco proved. John Terry sought to respond in kind with a flagrant body-check on Carlos Tévez and received a yellow card for his trouble. Carvalho soon went the same way into Howard Webb’s book for too meaty a follow-up on a Tévez challenge, scraping his studs down the striker’s back.
This lapse, however, was to be far more costly. Tévez lined up the resulting free kick and relished the spectacle of it swerving around the outside of the wall and in. Cech moved far too slowly to his right, but Tévez’s reaction, sliding on his knees in front of the crowing City supporters, was no less ecstatic for that.
Given’s subsequent heroics, scrambling low to his left to deny Lampard after City substitute Nedum Onuoha had been penalised for hauling down Drogba, magnified the moment.
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