Manchester City began their 2024-25 Premier League season with a 2-0 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Erling Haaland opened the scoring after collecting the ball in the Chelsea box. He dribbled forward before placing the ball past Robert Sanchez .
Chelsea then kept the visitors, bidding to win a fifth Premier League title in a row, at bay for the rest of the first half and the majority of the second. However, Chelsea old boy Mateo Kovacic settled the game on 84 minutes when he collected the ball and drove towards goal before firing a long-range strike into the net, with Sanchez failing to keep it out despite getting a hand to it. Here, The Athletic ’s club correspondents Liam Twomey and Sam Lee analyse the key talking points from the game.
How did the wingers picked ahead of Sterling look? The startling pre-match statement from Raheem Sterling ’s camp reacting to his exclusion from new head coach Enzo Maresca’s 20-man matchday squad ensured that the wingers who did play for Chelsea on Sunday were going to be a compelling prism through which to view this match, regardless of the final score. Advertisement Maresca started what he could reasonably argue are the club’s three best attacking players in Cole Palmer , Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku — a luxury that the latter’s injuries in his 2023-24 debut season deprived his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino of enjoying. Yet it is also reasonable to wonder if any of the three are maximised when dep.