Chelsea 0 Man City 3

Last updated : 16 April 2016 By Paul Lagan

Woeful Chelsea capitulated in the most horrible of fashion to Manchester City at Stamford Bridge, going down 3-0 to a Sergio Agureo hat trick.
To add insult to injury, the Blues best player on the day Thibaut Courtois was red-carded by Mike Dean for hacking down Fernandinho after Gary Cahill's mis-timed challenge on the Brazil midfielder opened up the Chelsea defence of him to race into and be hauled unceremoniously down. Augero cooly slotted home the spot kick.
By then, Argentina hit man Aguero had made mincemeat of a porous defence, who themselves were left exposed as Mikel and Cesar Azpilicueta needlessly lost possession in midfield and lightening quick counter attacks by City reaped the desired dividends.
But it was the Blues should have taken the lead on six minutes but a Pedro shot was first touched by Joe hart but the ball continued goal bound until Nicholas Otamendi hacked it off the goal line.
Seconds later on six minutes, ex-Blue Kevin De Bruyne's right-footed strike forced a fine save from Thibaut Courtois.
Diego Costa thought he had opened the scoring on eight minutes by beating the offside trap and clipping the ball over an advancing hart, But the striker was inches offside which was picked up by the linesman.
Hart produced a fine, low save to deny Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who after excellent twist and turn found himself free on goal, albeit from a tight angle.
A shot by Cahill was then deflected for a corner as the opening 22 minutes engaged in a shoot on sight policy.
Courtois was next up to deny De Bruyne who eased his way through the Chelsea rearguard before letting fly with a fine left-footer from the edge of the penalty box.
Courtois's outstretched bright boot defected the ball for a corner.
Courtois was rapidly becoming man of the match, halting an excellent City move which saw Samir Nasri free to get a shot away. The Belgian stopper used his giant frame to block the goal bound shot.
But Chelsea's defence was finally breached and Courtois could not be faulted. On 33 minutes, Mikel lost possession of the ball and it was quickly fed to de Btuyne, on the right. He raced goal wards before cutting the ball across the edge of the Chelsea six-yard line to Sergio Aguero. The Argentina striker took a touch before blasting the ball towards goal. The ball arrowed, on target, but took a slight but decisive defection off the outstretched boot of gary Cahill, beyond Courtois and into the back of the net.
A deserved goal number two came on 55 minutes when Chelsea reject De Bruyne skinned Cesar Azpilicueta before racing clear to set up Aguero who lashed the ball home past a proline Courtois.
With 13 minutes on the clock, Courtois, easily the best Chelsea player on the pitch was exposed by a missed challenge by Cahill on Fernandinho, tripped up the Brazil midfielder for a penLty and a regulation red card.
Up stepped Aguero to slot slot home his hat trick past Asmir Begovic who replaced Mikel.
Next week, it's Bournemouth away.

Teams: Chelsea: Thibaut Courtois; Cesar Azpilicueta, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic (c), Baba Rahman; John Obi Mikel, Cesc Fabregas; Willian, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Pedro; Diego Costa. Subs: Asmir Begovic, Radamel Falcao, Alexandre Pato, Bertrand Traore, Kenedy, Matt Miazga, Nemanja Matic


Man City: Hart, Zabaleta, Nasiri, Aguero, Kolarov, Navas, De Bruyne, Mangala, Fernandinho, Otamendi, Toure
Subs, Caballero, Sagna,, Fernando, Bony, Delph, Demichelis, Iheanacho

Refeee: Mike Dean