Manchester City 1 Chelsea 1
For a few seconds, Frank Lampard looked slightly overcome with awkwardness. He had been on the pitch only seven minutes, in his first home match for Manchester City, when the ball came to him in that position that used to be his trademark for Chelsea, back in the days when he was establishing himself as the most prolific scorer to pass through Stamford Bridge.
Lampard struck his shot cleanly, to the right of Thibaut Courtois, and what a way to introduce himself to his new crowd. Until that moment, it had been the away end serenading him. Now it was the City supporters and, incredibly, he might have gone on to win the match. This time, his shot struck his old mate, John Terry, prostrate on the turf, and Lampard was spared any more of the post-match apologies.
Yet City, a man down after Pablo Zabaleta’s red card, had been spared at a point when it looked like, once again, they were going to suffer at the hands of José Mourinho’s tactical expertise and come out with the same result from when these sides met here last season.
Courtois had been even more redundant than Petr Cech was in February and Chelsea, displaying all their powers of structure and resilience, had taken the lead five minutes after Zabaleta's second yellow card when Eden Hazard crossed for André Schürrle to slide in from the position that would usually have been occupied by City's right back.
Zabaleta is a hero in these parts, afforded a standing ovation as he went, but the cries of "one-nil to the referee" felt like a crowd looking for an excuse that was not really there. Mike Dean had an erratic and sometimes bewildering game but a player of Zabaleta's experience, already booked for bringing down Hazard, really ought to have known better than to have a couple of nibbles from behind at Diego Costa. His first was risky enough but the second connected with the back of Costa's calves and Chelsea's new signing is not the kind of man who accepts those indignations easily. Costa's reaction inflamed the situation but the bottom line is Zabaleta put his team at risk.
In that respect, Mourinho will be aggrieved by the result particularly when he could also reflect on Costa striking the post just a few minutes before Lampard slashed in the equaliser.
(Guardian Service)
