Wilson reacts.
Potter reacts.
Andy Hunter’s report has landed, so it’s time to wrap this blog up. Thanks for your company and emails – night.
Meanwhile, Stevenage have scored two very late goals to beat Aston Villa 2-1 at Villa Park. That’s a huge shock.
IN-CREDIBLE!
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) January 8, 2023
Stevenage's winning moment served up courtesy of Dean Campbell's strike!#BBCFootball #FACup pic.twitter.com/f87SXfAQM4
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Riyad Mahrez speaks
It’s good to play the way we played and to score four goals and keep a clean sheet. The free-kick [got a slight deflection] which made it a bit faster. I was going to take the first penalty but Julian asked me and I said, ‘Of course’. He’s a striker and he needs goals and stuff.
Chelsea have lost five of their last seven games in all competitions, and this is the first time they have gone out of the FA Cup in the third round since 1997-98.
Full time: Manchester City 4-0 Chelsea
City will play Oxford or Arsenal in the fourth round after hammering Chelsea at the Etihad. Riyad Mahrez scored two, with Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden getting the other goals. The first half was painfully one-sided, the second a non-event.
90 min There will be two minutes of added futility for Chelsea.
88 min Chelsea fans have been chanting “We want super Tommy Tuchel!” in the second half. And why not.
87 min Joao Cancelo is booked for a City foul on Chalobah. Just before that, Zakaria made another excellent tackle on Mahrez in the Chelsea area. He’s been very good since coming on at half-time.
87 min The exciting Rico Lewis has replaced Bernardo Silva.
86 min Actually, I was talking nonsense: he just smashed it slightly to the left of centre. From the first angle it looked like he had sprayed it high to the left. Either that or I’m losing it apace.
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GOAL! Man City 4-0 Chelsea (Mahrez 85 pen)
Mahrez spanks an unsaveable penalty into the top-left corner. Why doesn’t he just do that all the time?
Updated
Riyad Mahrez is going to take this penalty
PENALTY TO CITY! Foden moves through on goal after a lovely reverse pass from Bernardo Silva. Koulibaly tries to win the ball from the wrong side, and Foden goes over. A clear penalty.
Updated
84 min Apparently Chelsea’s xG today is 0.1.
83 min Actually I’m not sure the fans were being thrown out, I think they left of their own accord/despair. I misinterpreted something on the BBC commentary.
82 min A few Chelsea fans are being thrown out, I’m not sure why. On the field, Azpilicueta fouls Akanji and then hoofs the ball at the gigantic advertising hoarding in disgust.
81 min “Rob,” says Gary Boz, “with your unfavourable mentions of Liverpool, you seem to have solved the mystery of where the LFC of the last four years are hiding - have they currently taken up residence in your head?”
Please don’t be weird.
80 min Zakaria makes an excellent interception to deny Alvarez, who was moving towards the penalty area. “He’s a good player,” interjects Jermaine Jenas, and it’s hard to disagree on recent evidence.
78 min After a confident move from Chelsea, Zakaria’s long-range shot hits Akanji in a babymaking area and loops over the bar for a corner. Chelsea have played okay in the second half, although City have been in second gear.
77 min “Might take issue with Potter being a brilliant coach,” says Simon Fuller. “He’ll have seen what happened last season when Tuchel lost James and Chilwell, but when the same thing occurred this season he’s had no clue, no response at all.”
I didn’t say he could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He’s been there four months, and is only just getting a chance to buy his own players. Everything he did at Brighton suggests he is a top-class coach for clubs who want to build something longer term. Isn’t that why Chelsea wanted him? I found the fact he’s under pressure just bizarre and ridiculous.
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75 min “To those who think I am a creation of the Guardian MBM staff,” begins Mary Waltz. “1- If they wanted to draw more readers in making me an Everton fan makes no sense, they would be trying to whip up enthusiasm, not depression. 2- These are proper sports journalists, the constant run on sentences and errors in grammar would not keep occurring. 3- The great Romanian soup affair is surely to absurd to be made up.”
I don’t know that I’d call it an affair - it’s hardly Profumo, or even Thomas Crown - but I take your point.
74 min Hutchinson clips a tame shot wide from the edge of the area.
74 min: Chelsea substitution Carney Chukwuemeka replaces Mason Mount.
73 min Beautiful play from Mahrez. He leads Gallagher to the right, then shuffles back inside and whips a curling shot this far wide from the edge of the area.
70 min Bernardo Silva is booked for a tactical foul on Gallagher.
69 min Fofana has done a couple of encouraging things, most notably a bustling on the right that led to … well, bugger all, but that wasn’t his fault.
68 min City are passing the ball around, every caress another tweak of the knife that they plunged into Chelsea in the first half. It must be so humiliating for good players to have to dot the Is and cross the Ts on a heavy defeat that was confirmed before half-time.
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66 min “Considering how much more fluid City are in comparison to the Chelsea game in midweek, Guardiola must be considering whether he should drop Haaland more often,” says Kári Tulinius. “I doubt he’d do it for a crucial match, as he’d be slaughtered, but he must be thinking about it.”
This is worth keeping an eye on in the medium-term, absurd as it sounds. You just know Pep’s subconscious is giving all sorts of grief for accepting the offer of a cheat code.
Updated
63 min: Double substitution for Chelsea: Cesar Azpilicueta and Omari Hutchinson replace Jorginho and Hakim Ziyech.
63 min “Afternoon Rob,” says Stephen Carr. “As someone who started as a tricky left-winger who moved to centre-right mid (due to a combination of sciatica and a deep-seated love of a pint) I can say the difference in cuteness with the ball is body shape - or at least it was with me as I really, really loved a pint.”
62 min Gallagher gets his obligatory yellow card for flattening Cancelo.
Updated
60 min Everyone connected with Chelsea just needs to hold their nerve. They haev a brilliant coach - it’s far too early to say whether he has the personality to cope with a job of this size – and maybe a dozen of very talented players aged 25 or under. There’s work to do, and the squad is far too big, but they’re not a million miles away. And based on Chelsea’s modern history, they’ll probably win the Champions League this year.
58 min: Double substitution for City Kalvin Phillips and Joao Cancelo replace Rodri and Sergio Gomez.
58 min Chelsea are putting a bit more grunt into the second half, with Gallagher leading the way. City are strolling, it’s true, but Graham Potter has at least elicited some response from his players.
57 min “Did I see Liverpool mentioned?!?!” says Jeff Sachs, who has bounced back admirably from the disappointment of Darwin Nunez’s goal last night. “I think when a game is so one-sided, there should be an option to stop it early and prevent injuries...”
That’d go down well with Twitter’s finest I’m sure.
56 min Ziyech works a short corner with Gallagher and belabours a low cross that is booted clear in the six-yard box. Not sure who it was but that was good defending.
55 min The resulting free-kick is threaded by Gallagher to Mount, whose shot on the turn deflects off Gomez and is fingertipped round the post by Ortega Moreno. It might have been going wide anyway.
55 min “City’s next opponent in the FA Cup will probably be the Gunners but I think Oxford would put up a better fight then Chelsea,” says Mary Waltz. “Pathetic.”
She’s back! We had another email yesterday asking whether Mary was a Guardian Sport creation designed to enliven these blogs; I can assure you she’s not.
54 min Rodri is booked for a revenge tackle on Mount, who left one on him a couple of minutes earlier, and the two players briefly go head to head.
52 min Actually I think Chelsea have gone to a back five, with Hall and Gallagher as wing-backs. I give up.
Updated
52 min “I wonder,” says Lloyd Mills, “if Chelsea have been distracted by the monster electronic hoardings along the side of the pitch?”
Imagine how high they’ll be for the European Super League. It’ll be like an MMA cage.
51 min Hall’s poor pass goes straight to Alvarez and City break dangerously. Mahrez tries to play in Palmer but he’s well tracked by Zakaria.
49 min Looks like Chelsea have switched to a 4-2-3-1, with Mount wide left and Ziyech behind Fofana.
47 min “Digging up that 2019 ‘title decider’,” begins Rob Moore, “important to note that there was also a handball by Bernardo Silva to keep the ball moving forward when tackled by Lovren, before hitting Alexander-Arnold’s arm, so if anything is to be called, it was a free kick to Liverpool in their own penalty area. Hardly like-for-like with Havertz’s hand-punching-ball.”
Who said it was like-for-like? It raises an interesting point about VAR protocol, though – had they decided it was handball by Alexander-Arnold, could they overrule it because of Bernardo Silva’s or is that not in the old purview?
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46 min City begin the second half. Chelsea have made two substitutions: Denis Zakaria and the new signing David Datro Fofana replace Mateo Kovacic and Kai Havertz.
Updated
“Regarding Mahrez’s free kick,” says Paul Fitzgerald, “it’s strange how a player can be so lethal with a wall and a long distance between them and the net, yet so dismal from the penalty spot. The expected pressure to score must weigh heavier the nearer to goal they are.”
It’s fascinating how many high-class ball-strikers and/or goalscorers are terrified of penalties. Even Gianluca Vialli didn’t want to take one in the 1996 Champions League final, though that was partly because of his bad memories of 1992.
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“Why do lefties always seem to do more with the ball?” muses Jeremy Boyce. “They are many and yet they are few. Less than 10 per cent of the population are lefties. It used to be schooled out of you in the bad old days. So anything they do is already ‘opposite’ to the expectations of righties, and largely unexpected.
“I tried hard to be ambi- in my playing days, and often found I could get a game simply because I could kick with my left and could play left back. And bizarrely I could get much more curl (but less power) with my left than my right. And don’t forget, in Latin ‘left’ is ‘sinistra’, there’s devilry in their stuff that us righties can’t comprehend.”
Half time: Man City 3-0 Chelsea
It’s rare that you can hear an away team being booed off, but that’s what has happened to Chelsea after a desperate first half. Riyad Mahrez, Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden got the goals, and the scoreline doesn’t particularly flatter City.
“It’s not acceptable, that performance,” says Alan Shearer on the BBC. “That’s embarrassing.”
Julian Alvarez's last two club goals and his last two international goals have all come against sides including Mateo Kovacic.
— Richard Jolly 🇺🇦 (@RichJolly) January 8, 2023
45+1 min A pass from Jorginho goes straight out for a City corner, a decent summary of the first half. Nothing comes of it but even so, this is hard to watch.
45 min Almost a fourth on the stroke of half-time. Palmer plays in Mahrez, whose low cross just evades MahrAlvarez.
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44 min “The foul for the free kick was on Riyad Mahrez himself,” says Colum Fordham. “His shot was stunning even it got a fractional deflection. Why do left-footed free kicks look more beautiful than right-footed ones? Maradona, Mihajlovic (who is being celebrated together with Gianluca Vialli with a minute’s silence before the Fiorentina-Napoli game) and Mahrez, to name but a few.”
Isn’t it just that all left-footed (or left-handed in cricket) actions look more beautiful? Why, I know not.
41 min We shouldn’t forget that Chelsea are without nine senior players. Even so, this is a sore one because they are being hammered by a City team that includes only a handful of regulars.
After a series of short passes on the left, Rodri pinged a crossfield ball out to Mahrez on the right. He played in the underlapping Walker, whose precise low cross was deftly steered past Kepa by Foden. That’s a marvellous team goal.
Updated
GOAL! Man City 3-0 Chelsea (Foden 38)
Phil Foden finishes the game, already, with a lovely goal.
Updated
37 min “So if Chelsea had scored in the five minutes between the handball and penalty being given, would it have counted??” asks Dawn Shanks.
No. (And it was only about two minutes.) This happened at Anfield in 2019, when Fabinho scored a screamed after Manchester City thought (rightly, from memory) that Trent Alexander-Arnold had handled the ball in his own area. The referee gave the goal, but he could easily have gone back and given City a penalty.
35 min Koulibaly fouls Bernardo near the right edge of the area. Mahrez whips another free-kick that is pushed over the bar by Kepa, a comfortable save.
35 min: Chance for Alvarez! This is painfully one-sided. Rodri wins the ball just outside the Chelsea area, gets it back from Palmer and plays in Alvarez. He stabs a low shot that is saved to his right by Kepa.
33 min Here’s the opening goal from Riyad Mahrez, who is bang in form right now.
OH RIYAD MAHREZ 🔥
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) January 8, 2023
He's scored against Chelsea in three different games this season.#BBCFootball #FACup pic.twitter.com/FRyE7OCfCE
32 min Chelsea mood music.
GOAL! Man City 2-0 Chelsea (Alvarez 30 pen)
Julian Alvarez makes it two! Kepa went the right way and got a hand on it, but it squeezed into the bottom corner. Alvarez makes his first start since winning the World Cup with a goal.
Updated
Graham Potter looks at a replay of Havertz’s handball on the iPad, hoping to see an injustice, and has a simple two-word verdict: “Fuck me.”
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Penalty to City! Oh dear. Havertz inexplicably punched the ball away from the head of Laporte, a clear and slightly bizarre penalty.
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27 min A City corner leads to an appeal for handball from… Jermaine Jeans in the BBC commentary box. City didn’t really appeal at all, but it’s being checked by VAR.
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26 min Although it was on the other side of the field, Mahrez’s goal was a little reminiscent of Lionel Messi’s free-kick against Liverpool, which took a slight deflection off Joe Gomez but was still a belter.
Mahrez whipped a lovely free-kick that took a slight deflection, I think off the head of Gallagher, and flashed past the flying Kepa at the near post. It was a beautiful strike, and though I’d like to see a few replays to be sure, I’m not sure the deflection made that much difference.
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GOAL! Man City 1-0 Chelsea (Mahrez 23)
Riyad Mahrez scores against Chelsea for the third time this season!
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23 min Now City have a free-kick 25 yards from goal, a little to the right of centre, after Hall is penalised for a foul on look I didn’t see who it was okay.
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22 min In fact, Gomez accidentally clipped Ziyech’s trailing leg, so it was a foul. The reason VAR didn’t intervene is that the ball was bouncing through to the keeper, so Gomez didn’t deny a clear goalscoring opportunity.
21 min A long ball forward is too heavy for Ziyech, who goes down on the edge of the area after a challenge from behind by Gomez. He thought he was fouled; the referee disagreed. We haven’t seen a replay, but it looked like Gomez fell into Ziyech and knocked him over; that said, I don’t think Ziyech was getting the ball either way.
Updated
19 min: Chance for Palmer! Laporte clips a simple pass over the top for Palmer, who runs inside Chalobah and through on goal in the inside-left channel. Palmer slides a languid low shot through Kepa’s legs and into the side netting. The referee gave a corner but I’m not sure Kepa saved it.
17 min City’s tempo is slightly too slow – not as bad as in the first half at Stamford Bridge, but not as good as in the second.
16 min Chelsea play superbly through midfield on the left, but Mount takes a split-second too long on the ball and is crowded out.
14 min City are having all of the ball, but so far Chelsea – who have packed the centre of midfield - have been able to keep them at arms’ length.
12 min It’s been a fairly cagey start, same as in the league game on Thursday. Gomez’s sharp cutback ricochets around the area before Foden hooks an inventive effort over his shoulder just wide. By then the referee had blown for something or other.
10 min Mahrez moves elegantly away from Hall, gets to the byline and slides a low cross that is well claimed by Kepa with Alvarez waiting behind him.
10 min These are the revised formations.
Man City (4-1-2-3) Ortega Moreno; Walker, Akanji, Laporte, Gomez; Rodri; Bernardo, Foden; Mahrez, Alvarez, Palmer.
Chelsea (4-3-2-1) Kepa; Chalobah, Humphreys, Koulibaly, Hall; Gallagher, Jorginho, Kovacic; Ziyech, Mount; Havertz.
8 min Havertz leaves a bit on Rodri and is fortunate to avoid a yellow card. Ortega Moreno played a short pass into Rodri, and Havertz plunged his studs into Rodri’s foot without really trying to play the ball. Anyway, he’s fine.
6 min Actually, Mount and Ziyech are interchanging quite a lot, and at times the Chelsea formation looks more like 4-3-2-1 than 4-2-3-1. I do love tactics. Nothing much is happening on the field, hence this gentle meander up my own fundament.
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4 min Palmer and Foden combined nicely down the left before Palmer’s cross is blocked by Chalobah. I’m trying to work out Chelsea’s attacking system – it looks like Gallagher is playing wide right with Mount as the No10 and Ziyech roaming from the left.
Updated
2 min Right, tactics. Bashir Humphreys has started at centre-back, with Trevor Chalobah playing at right-back, and Humphreys’ first contribution is to calmly dispossess Bernardo Silva near the byline.
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1 min Peep peep! Chelsea, specifically Kai Havertz, kick off from right to left as we watch.
The players gather round the centre circle to pay tribute to Gianluca Vialli. Don’t count the years in his life; remember the life in his years.
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A reminder of the teams
Man City (4-1-2-3) Ortega Moreno; Walker, Akanji, Laporte, Gomez; Rodri; Bernardo, Foden; Mahrez, Alvarez, Palmer.
Substitutes: Ederson, Phillips, Stones, Ake, Cancelo, Gundogan, Haaland, De Bruyne, Lewis.
Chelsea (possible 4-2-3-1) Kepa; Chalobah, Koulibaly, Humphreys, Hall; Jorginho, Kovacic; Ziyech, Gallagher, Mount; Havertz.
Substitutes: Bettinelli, Azpilicueta, Badiashile, Cucurella, Thiago Silva, Chukwuemeka, Zakaria, Hutchinson, D Fofana.
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The players are ready for business. It looks a grim, dank day in Manchester, perfect for a sliding header.
GP speaks
Graham Potter had some lovely words about Gianluca Vialli 💙 pic.twitter.com/I3xe4iSq0n
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) January 8, 2023
Today’s winners* will play … at home to Oxford or Arsenal in the fourth round
* Or the winners of the replay if they draw today
Remembering Luca. 💙 pic.twitter.com/DPLkMBlEvk
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) January 8, 2023
If they really want to pay tribute, one of them should score a sliding header today.
Home sweet home! 🤩#ManCity pic.twitter.com/8670fIQUFt
— Manchester City (@ManCity) January 8, 2023
The draw for the fourth round is taking place as we spake
Rome wasn’t built in 140 characters
He’s on the bench again today
Football lost a bit of the twinkle in its eye on Friday, when Gianluca Vialli died aged 58. He wasn’t quite the man who started the Chelsea revolution – but he did accelerate it, winning three major cup competitions in as many seasons and making them credible Premier League challengers for the first time.
In 1998-99 they lost only three games and still finished third behind Manchester United and Arsenal. Vialli also took Chelsea to a Champions League quarter-final, when they came within a few minutes of eliminating Barcelona. More than all of that, he made the world a lighter, happier place.
Team news
Seven changes for City, six for Chelsea. Notable starters include Julian Alvarez, Cole Palmer and Aymeric Laporte for City, and the teenagers Bashir Humphreys and Lewis Hall for Chelsea.
The return from injury of Mason Mount means that Chelsea are now only without nine senior plyaers. Two of their new signings, Benoit Badiashile and Datro Fofana, are among the substitutes; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the sub who was subbed against City on Thurusday, is not.
Man City (4-1-2-3) Ortega Moreno; Walker, Akanji, Laporte, Gomez; Rodri; Bernardo, Foden; Mahrez, Alvarez, Palmer.
Substitutes: Ederson, Phillips, Stones, Ake, Cancelo, Gundogan, Haaland, De Bruyne, Lewis.
Chelsea (possible 4-2-3-1) Kepa; Humphreys, Chalobah, Koulibaly, Hall; Jorginho, Kovacic; Ziyech, Gallagher, Mount; Havertz.
Substitutes: Bettinelli, Azpilicueta, Badiashile, Cucurella, Thiago Silva, Chukwuemeka, Zakaria, Hutchinson, D Fofana.
Referee Robert Jones.
Updated
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of Manchester City v Chelsea at the Etihad. It’s the tie of the FA Cup third round, a plumdinger between two teams who contested the Champions League final 18 months ago. The good news for both is that one of them will end a losing streak today. The bad news is that they’ll do it by losing.
To explain. In each of the last three seasons, City have been knocked out of hte FA Cup in the semi-finals. Chelsea have gone one worse by losing the last three finals, a unique and unwelcome achievement. For one of them, the streak ends today.
If it’s Chelsea – full disclosure, it’s not beyond the realms – the bizarre pressure on Graham Potter will intensify. As if a grotesque injury list wasn’t bad enough, he has drawn City in both cup competitions and had to play them in the league the other day as well.
I was going to say that the FA Cup is Chelsea’s last realistic chance of winning a trophy this season; then I remembered how bad their form was before they won the Champions League in 2012 and 2021. Still, it’s probably their best chance, certainly if they get through today.
Chelsea owned this competition between 2006-12, winning it four times in six seasons, but they’ve only won it once in the last decade. City’s bid for world domination really got going when they beat Stoke in the 2011 final to win their first major trophy in 35 years. Since then they’ve only won it once, when they plugged Watford 6-0 to complete a slightly forgotten domestic Treble in 2018-19.
Under Pep Guardiola, and Manuel Pellegrini for that matter, City have been more of a Carabao Cup team. It’s not their biggest priority this year – RB Leipzig away on 22 February – but they wouldn’t say no to a bit of trophy-lifting action at Wembley in June. Yep, June.
Kick off 4.30pm.
