Riyad Mahrez‘s tap in following a neat City move from our own penalty box was enough to guarantee the three points.
It was a tale of two very different halves of football as Chelsea enjoyed the better of the play before the break and then the Blues took charge in the second period, eventually getting the winner in the 64th minute.
It means we have 39 points from 17 matches as the season intensifies following the World Cup break.
Overall, we enjoyed marginally more of the ball with 52% possession. That led to a total of 12 shots, while our hosts had eight themselves.
As expected, we completed more passes than our opponents although that margin was also more narrow than usual. We played 548 accurate passes, compared to Chelsea’s 471.
Here we’ll take a closer look at some of the key statistics that arose from the game...
Super Stones
John Stones was imperious at the back for the Blues.
As pointed out by Opta, the centre-back had more touches than anyone else on the pitch (102), completed 98% of his passes (85/87), won all of his aerial duels (4/4), and made the most clearances of any City player (4).
That came amongst several changes at the back for the Blues as our shape and the personnel were both switched on the night.
It also doesn’t take into account the sheer importance of his timely block on Christian Pulisic, who looked almost certain to score in the first half.
Back to front
As the below graphic shows, City’s move for the only goal of the game even included our goalkeeper.
We had been patient with the ball throughout, even during the first half when we had struggled to create chances except for Erling Haaland‘s poked effort.
This was another move that started in midfield, went back to our goalkeeper and built up again.
You can see John Stones had the ball in midfield and rather than forcing a pass that wasn’t on, he played it back to Manuel Akanji who gave it back to Ederson.
From there, it went through Rodrigo, Akanji, Rico Lewis, Riyad Mahrez, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and eventually Mahrez again.
Everything that City are about, wrapped into one goal.
Second half subs
We struggled to create chances in the first half, ending the first 45 with an xG of just 0.34. That drastically changed in the second half as we accumulated 1.71 in terms of xG.
As we can see from the graphic below, Chelsea (on the left of the chart) had the more attacking threat before the break whereas City flipped that on its head in the second period.
That may largely have come down to the changes Pep Guardiola made. Rico Lewis and Manuel Akanji arrived at half-time with Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez not long after them.
Since he joined City, Mahrez has scored more Premier League goals as a substitute than any other player (9).
His goal, assisted by Grealish, came just 3 minutes and 43 seconds after both players had been subbed on.
All four players were very smart with their pass selection, with Grealish completing every ball attempted, Lewis 96.9% of his passes, Mahrez 93.8% and Akanji 89.5%.
Guardiola always stresses the importance of keeping the ball where possible and that upturn may have been key last night.
Premier League stats so far
Erling Haaland didn’t score, but he remains the leading scorer in the league with 21 goals. He is six ahead of Harry Kane, the nearest challenger.
Kevin De Bruyne remains top of the assists chart across the league with nine.
Rodrigo‘s 1,488 passes so far are the most in the league and the Spaniard has had 1,675 in matches so far - also more than anyone else.
Our 45 goals is five more than next best Arsenal while our seven clean sheets is the fourth best in the competition.
We have completed 11,522 passes so far, a full 1314 ahead of next best Liverpool.
