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Saturday, 15 February 2014

Manchester City Ends Chelsea FA Cup Dream




Manchester City ended Chelsea's run in the FA Cup defeating them 2-0 at the Ethihad.

A first-half strike from Stevan Jovetic and another in the second half by substitute, Samir Nasri, confine Chelsea to a defeat in the oldest cup competition.
City went into the match on the back of two defeats in the hands of their opponents this season already, Pellegrini welcomes back Javi Garcia and Samir Nasri after weeks of injury layoff. Garcia made the starting lineup but Nasri started from the Bench.

John Obi Mikel started for Chelsea in the Midfield and the partnership of Luiz and Cahill in the centre defence continued as John Terry is still ruled out with injury.

City started brightly and should have taken the lead after 15 minutes when Jovetic's effort hit the crossbar from close range after Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech had spilled a drive from Yaya Toure, He soon made up for his miss few seconds later as a Clichy Initiated move saw him played in by Dzeko and he his onetime shot went past Cech in goal to give City the lead.

Manchester City learnt from their previous two encounters with Chelsea in which they lost as caged their opponent, defending resolutely and cutting every attacking move and did not commit too many men forward so they won't be caught on the counter like before.

The lead could have been two towards the end of the first half, as an awful defensive work by David Luiz allowed James Milner to run free on the left but Edin Dzeko was late getting to his curled low cross across the face of goal inside the six yard area.

Mourinho tried get back into the game after the break, Samuel Eto'o was replaced with Mohamed Salah, £11m January acquisition from Benfica, but it was City that scored again despite Chelsea’s efforts through Samir Nasri who replaced Stevan Jovetic after 61 minutes of game time.

Nasri collected a pass from Captain Vincent Kompany and ran at the Chelsea's defence from midfield and exchanged a simile one-two pass with David Silva, before tapping into an empty net from six yards out.

Joleon Lescott taught he had made it three but his effort was ruled for an offside.

Chelsea managed just three efforts at goal in the 90 minutes: hopeful shots from distance from Willian and Cesar Azpilicueta that were well off target, and a late Gary Cahill header which was blocked.

The Win for Manchester City is coming at the right time after two successive matches without a single goal as they will welcome Barcelona at the round of 16 stage of the UEFA champions league.

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