subject: English Premier League- Top Leader Chelsea Loses To Manchester City 2-1 [print this page] The leader of the English Premier League, Chelsea lost to Manchester City 2-1 this past Saturday, as visitors in the City of Manchester Stadium. The win can be attributed to a goal by the Argentine striker Carlos Tevez, who converted a free kick and surprised Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech. The result of this game was taken as advantage by the English Premier champions Manchester United, who earlier on Saturday beat West Ham United 4-0, and kept up the pressure on the leader, who is now only two points ahead.
In an intense match at the City of Manchester Stadium, Carlo Ancelotti's team was unable to overcome Mark Hughes's team approach and game plan, which drowned the ball out of them. In the first half, the protagonist was the Togolese striker Emmanuel Adebayor, who gave Chelsea the lead with his own goal at minute 8. But then Adebayor redeemed himself by scoring the equalizer of his team at minute 37, on a play in which he received the ball from right side's Micah Richards. The first half of the game concluded with a tie for both sides at 1-1.
During the second half, Tevez took advantage of the poor location of the Czech goalkeeper and scored City's second goal by a free kick. His shot hit the center at minute 56, putting the score 2-1 in favor of the locals.
After that goal, the Blues were determined to tie the score and were close to doing so, but wasted an opportunity when Frank Lampard missed the penalty. Goalkeeper Shay Given snagged a great save with only 7 minutes left. After this penalty, City controlled the ball until the end, winning 2-1.
After the game, Chelsea's Coach Carlo Ancelotti stated that while Petr Cech has performed very well this season, he was not up to par in the City game: "This season, over the whole campaign so far, Petr has done very very well. I like him. He takes the responsibility and likes to come out and catch the ball in the box. But if you ask me about the free-kick on Saturday, he could have done better. It was not like that at City. But even a good goalkeeper can make a mistake sometimes,".
On the other hand, Michael Ballack stated that he was proud of the way his team played tough and disappointment that they didn't get a draw: "We could have got a draw if we'd scored from the penalty spot and that would have been a good away result. Even after that we had a good chance to equalize, so we have to take some positives from the game. We're disappointed to lose but we have to remember the good things - the way we fought back and the fact we deserved a draw," expressed Ballack.
Manchester City moved up in the standings to sixth place with 25 points; one ahead of Liverpool, who is now seventh. Manchester City had not had a win in the last seven consecutive games; which all ended in draws.
Despite Chelsea's loss, they are still in first with 36 points; however, their lead has dropped to only two points ahead of Manchester United and 8 points ahead of the third placed team, Arsenal.
