What the Premier League is all about: Manchester City end up giving away points, Chelsea still underachieving

Only half of the 21st round of the Premier League was played at the weekend, yet there is plenty to analyse. Manchester City performed a turnaround at Newcastle, and in our weekly series, we’ll look at Chelsea’s 1-0 triumph over Fulham.

KDB = more important than Haaland for Manchester City

If anyone was missing proof of Kevin de Bruyne‘s importance to Manchester City, two hours of Saturday’s match against Newcastle is enough to prove it. The Magpies certainly weren’t in ideal form, on the contrary they were on fire defensively compared to last year, but the Citizens didn’t hit the target.

When they did, Martin Dúbravka was in the right place. Once again, Manchester’s inability to score a second goal this year paid off, and Newcastle turned the game around within three minutes. In the current season, the Citizens have already given points to Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool.

When de Bruyne came on, he was immediately dangerous from a free kick. Four and a half minutes later, he dug in on the edge of the box and, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, sent the ball between the legs of Fabian Schar straight into the bottom left corner.

The Belgian even assisted the decisive shot and showed that he will be extremely important for the next few games. After his arrival, the centres were finally addressable and dangerous, which will be an increasingly bigger weapon with the return of Haaland. But the Citizens without de Bruyne will certainly suffer more than without the Norwegian sniper.

Chelsea are at their provisional peak

Chelsea have won their third league game in a row, the fans are relatively happy, but from an unbiased perspective it’s not such glory. “ It’s okay.” But it’s after okay that you get a certain “but”.

There’s a huge lack of cohesion in the young squad. And that’s been the case in every game since the beginning of the year. At Luton, Chelsea went from 3-0 down in the 80th minute to a drama until the last minute, at Middlesbrough their players with xG almost at 3 didn’t score a single goal.

They did win against Fulham, but it wasn’t to be a drama until the final minutes. Missed chances, poor finishing, all stemmed from inexperience.

Quite possibly even worse is how foolishly the Blues played in the setup. Instead of kicking the ball away, they combined around their own penalty area. With all due respect, we haven’t seen anything like that at Premier League level for a long time.

Source: Premier League