London (AFP)

Manchester City, yet deprived of several positive players for Covid-19, largely dominated the shock of the 17th day of the Premier League on the pitch of Chelsea (3-1) on Sunday and repositioned itself in the title race.

Thanks to this success at Stamford Bridge, Pep Guardiola's men are back to 5th place, four points behind the leader Liverpool who travels to Southampton on Monday night.

But the Mancuniens have two games less compared to the Reds.

For its part, Chelsea retrograde to 8th place and lose ground on the leading teams.

The Blues definitely have a problem against the bigger teams at home.

After losing to Liverpool (0-2), then making two draws against Tottenham (0-0) and Sevilla in the Champions League (0-0), they lost their footing against Manchester in truly worrying proportions.

The domination of City was very clear against the club that spent the most money in the last transfer window, which only created an illusion for fifteen minutes, at the very start of the match.

The possession of the ball (66% at the end of the first quarter of an hour) was also too important to be real.

The trap set by Pep Guardiola - leaving the initiative while waiting for some drafts - worked perfectly, and allowed the Citizens to score with almost every foray into the Chelsea box.

Misaligned, too slow or altogether absent, Thiago Silva delivered his worst performance since his arrival at Chelsea and was involved in the three goals of Ilkay Gündogan (18th), Phil Foden (20th) and Kevin De Bruyne (34th).

He was not helped by Kurt Zouma, also quite feverish, nor N'Golo Kanté, rarely overtaken in midfield.

While Olivier Giroud remained on the bench, the attacking trio Pulisic-Werner-Ziyech was not at all inspired.

Manchester City was content to control the game in the second half, against a team that had already abdicated, even if Callum Hudson-Odoi reduced the mark in the last moments (90 + 2).

This shock confirms that the main victim of the end of the year celebrations, so tortuous in the Premier League, is Chelsea.

The Blues have taken just one point in three games.

Frank Lampard's formation is three points away from fourth qualifying place for the Champions League, but the gap could widen due to staggered matches.

- Leicester restart -

After two draws against Manchester United (2-2) and Crystal Palace (1-1), Leicester returned to victory at Newcastle (2-1).

This success allows the formation of Brendan Rodgers to regain its third place, and a little margin in a very tight first part of the classification, with ten teams who stand in seven points.

The strong men of the usual eleven (including Vardy, Tielemans or Wesley Fofana) were back and had no real difficulty in winning against a formation of Newcastle still so pale which remains on six games without a win.

The decision was made in the second half thanks to James Maddison (55th) and Youri Tielemans (72nd), before the reduction of the score of Andy Carroll (82nd), who had not scored in the Premier League since April 2018.

© 2021 AFP