Chelsea: Six lessons learnt from Chelsea’s blitz of Manchester City

5. Communication is vital

There were two glaring incidents in the match that showed an absence of communication. The most obvious was the eye sore between Ilkay Gundogan and Benjamin Mendy. This one is tricky because Gundogan tells Mendy to move away from the ball but Mendy does not seem to understand. Communication is between two people and if one person says something the other does not understand, there is a communication failure.

The second was between Marcos Alonso and Antonio Rudiger. Alonso made an unnecessary foul on Mahrez, particularly unnecessary because Rudiger had him covered. Chelsea’s episode of miscommunication did not lead to a goal but Manchester City’s did. On another day it could be the other way around.

6. Frank Lampard is a genius

Not really a lesson learnt because Chelsea fans already knew this. He really is. Lampard’s line up raised a lot of questions, especially with the appearance of Ross Barkley in place of either Jorginho or Mateo Kovacic. Antonio Rudiger did not cover himself in glory against Aston Villa and many expected that he would be dropped but he was not. Lampard’s decision to start Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso, the “slow pair”, shows how deep his understanding of the game is.

Lampard chose maturity and intelligence in his team selection, mixed it with talent and youth. It worked to perfection. N’Golo Kante committed two fouls, but got no booking. Lampard knew the stakes, knew that many of those players had been in games of that magnitude and they would know how to keep their composure. He knew that pairing Alonso with Reece James would be suicide, because they both like to push higher up the pitch. He knew that pairing Emerson with anybody would be problematic because Emerson has no spatial awareness, so much so that he gifted Mahrez a goal in the reverse fixture. Lampard played N’Golo Kante as the deepest midfielder and never brought in Jorginho.

Lampard was intentional with his line up. He needed work rate, maturity, level heads. He selected a team that many did not agree with, but it worked perfectly, if not better than planned.

What lessons did you learn from the big City win? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter!