PL Preview: Will Manchester City and Chelsea Break Tradition and Go Toe-to-Toe?

It was easier to predict in the old days. When Jose Mourinho was in charge of Chelsea in the week leading into a heavyweight bout, he would invariably channel Muhammad Ali’s mouth to wind up his managerial counterpart, before on the first bell implementing a tactical masterclass borrowed from the boxer’s most famous fight.

Chelsea’s trip to Manchester City in February 2014 is a classic case study. In the buildup to the game, Mourinho had labelled Chelsea “a little horse” compared to Manchester City’s thoroughbreds, per the BBC. It was no more than a smokescreen designed to temper rising expectations over Chelsea’s title aspirations, growing as they steadily were in his first season back in England.

Then-City manager Manuel Pellegrini more rolled his eyes than rubbed them, but as a wasp-like irritant, Mourinho had done his job. Ahead of Saturday lunchtime’s meeting between the two clubs Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte have indulged in no such horseplay, both seemingly content to keep their own counsel.

In 2014, the real sting came in the ring. Just as Ali did to George Foreman in 1974’s Rumble in the Jungle, Chelsea leaned on the ropes in the early rounds, rope-a-dope with chin jutted provocatively, absorbing City’s best shots. Once the home team had punched themselves out, the away side rained in with counter-attacks of exacting economic precision. Ali won with a knockout. 

Chelsea won 1-0, just as they did many games of a similar ilk, a scoreline that ultimately flattered the hosts more than the visitors. That the knockout blow arrived courtesy of Branislav Ivanovic, of all people, was the equivalent of Ali perplexing Foreman by repeatedly throwing unorthodox right-hand leads.

It ended City’s run of 11 straight home wins, and in the process, Chelsea became the first side since November 2010 to stop the champions-elect from scoring in their own back yard. That was no mean feat considering City had plundered 68 league goals already by that point. 

When Mourinho employs counter-attacking tactics these days, it leads to accusations he is parking the same bus he introduced into football’s rich lexicon, via a withered assessment of Tottenham Hotspur’s lack of ambition in a goalless draw at Stamford Bridge in 2004.

Some 12 years on, Conte is more in charge of a runaway train than a stationary bus. From the moment he asked Cesc Fabregas to get off for not having a valid ticket the propensity to graft in a middle two in a 3-4-3, replete with wing-backs, Conte’s Chelsea have hit opponents unconditioned to playing the system with the affront of a cold snap on a summer’s day.

Even if he wanted to, it’s difficult to see how Conte could quell his team’s enthusiasm, as infectious as his own at present, to do anything other than play on the front foot and go toe-to-toe with City. 

Mourinho may have written the Premier League manual for how to pull off the quintessential away win in a top-of-the-table clash, but it’s unlikely Conte has even bothered thumbing through it given the disparity of their respective philosophies. If it’s a rumble that ensues in Manchester on Saturday, Chelsea will be more Foreman than Ali.

Arsenal were so good and Chelsea so bad on that fateful meeting between the two sides in late September, a 3-0 half-time deficit convinced Conte to ditch the off-the-shelf back four he had inherited for a bespoke back three. Just like that, it became crystal clear what Chelsea had been missing.

Conte without a back three is like Tommy Cooper without his fez, or Groucho Marx sans cigar. As the legendary American designer Charles Eames used to say, the details make the design. Since making the switch, Chelsea have won seven successive league games, scoring 19 and conceding only once. Conte has made just one change in this period, with Pedro having come in for Willian and kept his place courtesy of some fine performances.

Perhaps only Arsenal could win a game 3-0 and inadvertently bestow on their opponents a gift that could prove to be defining not just for Chelsea’s season, but the title race, period. They’d steal your wife and then ring up a week later to ask if you fancied going on a double date with Scarlett Johansson.

Conte has gone from being used to bookend montages conveying how the Premier League is now the home of the Galactico manager, to being smack bang central. In the video below, a softly spoken, ethereal John Terry speaks to former team-mate William Gallas of being dropped by Conte as though it’s almost a religious experience. If Fabregas, Willian, Oscar, Ivanovic and Michy Batshuayi make similar videos, it’s officially a cult. 

Remarkable interview from John Terry about how it feels to be dropped: https://t.co/CgpScfExeX

— Paul Campbell (@campbellwpaul) November 30, 2016

According to ESPN’s Mark Ogden, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is similarly so enamoured with the Italian he has gone as far as to take down all of the Guardiola posters that previously adorned his bedroom/yacht walls. It would appear even Russian oligarchs can have their head turned by a suave Italian in the face of unrequited love elsewhere. 

It’s no surprise Conte’s stock has risen so sharply. From the frankly shapeless mess he was greeted with on taking the job, he has forged a highly cohesive unit, and beyond that, individuals are flourishing under his management. There are deeper problems at Chelsea than the superficial ones he has solved so impressively—the age and depth of the squad to name two—but they are historic rather than of his own making.

David Luiz has gone from being the world’s most expensive football-comedian hybrid to the league’s deepest and arguably best quarterback. Eden Hazard is sending Mourinho’s …

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