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It hasn\u2019t all been plain sailing for Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino this season <\/p>\n
City\u2019s success has not come on the cheap, but nor has it been inevitable. Chelsea are an illustration of that. Spending is not an answer without a strategy. Their decline has been fast-tracked by Todd Boehly; an outlay of over \u00a31bn on players came with precious little of the planning that helped bring Guardiola a treble, and none of the continuity. Pochettino inherited potential, but also a mess.<\/p>\n
Some of City\u2019s business has been funded by Chelsea\u2019s largesse. If \u2013 and it remains if \u2013 a Chelsea revival has begun, it may be fast-tracked by two talents Guardiola discarded. Only Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero have scored more goals for Guardiola than Raheem Sterling, who got 120, but a mere nine in his first year at Stamford Bridge. Cole Palmer scored for City in the Community Shield and the Super Cup this summer and was then sold.<\/p>\n
Now Palmer has three goals and three assists in his last five games while Sterling has struck four times already this season. \u201cHe\u2019s playing really good, he is back in his best moments from what I\u2019ve seen lately,\u201d said Guardiola. \u201cHe always creates incredible dangers for the opponents, what he did for many years for us, part of the big success we have done in the early ages, Raheem was very important.\u201d He was less effusive about Palmer. \u201cHe wanted game time and he has it, so congratulations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
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Raheem Sterling has recaptured some form this season <\/p>\n
Each was integral in what was arguably the best result of the Boehly era, along with last season\u2019s double over the eventual Champions League semi-finalists AC Milan: Monday\u2019s 4-1 win over a Tottenham team who had been league leaders. Yet it had a farcical feel, a game shaped by the red cards that reduced Pochettino\u2019s former club to nine men. It is, though, Chelsea\u2019s only win against any of the supposed big six or Newcastle since the start of last season: they have lost four games to City without scoring in that time.<\/p>\n
City head to Stamford Bridge as favourites. Guardiola, nevertheless, thinks that, after their precipitous slide, Chelsea will be on the way up again. \u201cSooner or later, Chelsea will be there fighting for the title; no doubt,\u201d he said. \u201cThe quality in all departments is there.\u201d But the last time Chelsea challenged for the title, Guardiola was in his awkward first year in England. Now, with their dominance entrenched and Chelsea reinvented as the most expensive underachievers in the history of the Premier League, it feels like another era.<\/p>\n