Chelsea fight back to beat City

Chelsea produced a stunning second half performance to come from behind and beat Manchester City 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium.

Gary Cahill's own goal gave Pep Guardiola's side a deserved lead just before the break as Chelsea failed to hit their recent high notes in the opening period.

The hosts could have put the game to bed not long after the restart but Kevin de Bruyne somehow contrived to hit the bar from a couple of yards out with the goal empty.

They were left to rue their missed opportunities soon after when Diego Costa took the game by the scruff of the neck and turned it completely in the west Londoners' favour.

The forward showed a great touch in taking Cesc Fabregas' sumptuous pass before turning Nicolas Otamendi and firing past Claudio Bravo.

On 70 minutes Costa turned provider, playing in substitute Willian who rifled home a powerful effort to finish a rapid counter-attack.

Yaya Toure and Kelei Iheanacho were introduced for the home side as they looked for a way back into the game.

However, it was the visitors who remained the most threatening with Eden Hazard sealing the win with another goal on the break, taking Marcos Alonso's pass in his stride before drilling the third past Bravo.

It was a brilliant turnaround from Antonio Conte's side, taking full advantage of City's uncertainty at the break; while Chelsea's own defence was far from solid, it was their opponents who really struggled with a three-at-the-back system.

City's bad day was compounded in injury time when Sergio Aguero - who had failed to take a number of decent chances throughout the game which he would normally expect to do better with - allowed his frustrations to get the better of him when he scythed down David Luiz, making no attempt to play the ball at all and could have caused his fellow South American a serious injury.

In the resulting melee, Fernandinho was also shown a straight red card for pushing Fabregas over a hoarding and the loss of two key players for at least three games could hurt City even as much as this defeat to one of their title rivals.

Their continuing defensive uncertainty is something which will cause Guardiola many sleepless nights and John Stones isn't playing with the assurance of a £50m defender, nor is £30m Otamendi beside him while Aleksandr Kolarov looks like the attacking left-back trying to play centre-half that he is.

Chelsea won't care though as they registered an eighth consecutive victory to open up a four-point gap at the top of the Premier League, as well as sending a warning to everyone else that they will take some shifting from top spot.

Photo-Getty Images/Paul Ellis

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