Chelsea 0-3 Man City (O’Reilly 51′, Guehi 57′, J Doku 68′)

STAMFORD BRIDGE — It is 3-0 to the visitors at Stamford Bridge on an afternoon so sunny you could believe that it is late May. The celebrations in the away end could convince you of it too: Manchester City fans celebrating a statement victory like it’s a coronation.

“Are you watching Arsenal?” those from Manchester crow, and you’d have to imagine that they had probably switched off several minutes earlier when the contest ceased to exist. In the front row, one wag had a plastic bottle with the Arsenal crest on the side, waving it towards the cameras. As visual metaphors go, it’s a little on the nose.

Anyone of Arsenal persuasion watching beforehand will have seen a team currently capable of doing what they are not; shifting through the gears with frightening ease. The first half was perfunctory and a little dull. Erling Haaland took no shots, had no touches in Chelsea’s box and had the fewest in total of any player on the pitch.

Rayan Cherki was the architect because how could anyone not be with those dancing feet and that insouciant attitude towards pressure? It doesn’t always work because magic isn’t famed for its consistency, but there are few players in the world that you would be happier giving the ball to. There are even fewer who you would want to watch more when they get it.

Chelsea helped, as ever. There are myriad ways to epitomise their mismanagement; Sunday offered a glaring snapshot into another. City’s second goal was created by Cherki, a magician by any measure, but it was scored by Marc Guehi. Guehi ran towards the away end at Stamford Bridge like a man not used to arrowing shots into the bottom corner. You can forgive that.

“Marc Guehi is a Blue; he hates Chelsea,” that away end sang to taunt those glum faces around them. Which probably isn’t true, but does allude to Guehi’s own history. He was sold by Chelsea for £18m in 2021, going to Crystal Palace to develop and become one of the best central defenders in the country.

Why is that so relevant? Because of the way Chelsea were cut open so easily as soon as City upped the tempo on Sunday. Because of the space Guehi found for himself for the second goal and how limp the marking was for the first.

So far this season, Chelsea have used nine different central defensive combinations: Josh Acheampong and Trevoh Chalobah. Chalobah and Tosin Adarabioyo, Chalobah and Jorrel Hato, Acheampong and Benoit Badiashile, Wesley Fofana and Chalobah, Tosin and Badiashile, Chalobah and Badiashile, Chalobah and Mamadou Sarr, Hato and Fofana. It was the latest of those pairings on Sunday.

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There are reasons to fear such change even if all the options are of peak age and good enough for a club that has spent a billion pounds and has supposed title ambitions now or soon. But when none of those players are as good as the one you sold on the cheap, it becomes a terrible look for everyone involved.

City have now won 29 of their 32 league matches in April under Guardiola. They are the kings of fighting season because they know winning now means you win twice: once for yourselves and once for the pressure you put on the rest.

That is Arsenal’s weakness, of course; April is the month of Mikel Arteta’s lowest win percentage as a manager. A draw next weekend and he’d probably be happy for it to drop a percentage point or two. But they have been warned. “We fight to the end,” was the final retort from that away end. Don’t they just.

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