Man City need late equaliser to deny Chelsea
Rodri’s late equaliser denied Chelsea victory at the Etihad Stadium.
Their performance nevertheless continued an encouraging recent recovery by the Blues, who won their previous two matches and can take heart from this showing too.
They went ahead through Raheem Sterling’s goal against his former club.
Nicolas Jackson atoned for an early miss by producing a superb piece of play to set up the goal.
The striker cleverly back-heeled the ball out to Cole Palmer on the right, collected the return pass and delivered a first-time low cross to Sterling, who cut inside Kyle Walker and fired into the far corner of the net.
Jackson should have opened the scoring after being set up by Malo Gusto’s ball in from the right, but his first touch enabled Manchester City keeper Ederson to clear the danger.
Erling Haaland missed three chances to equalise – including when he sent a free header wide of the target from Kevin De Bruyne’s cross.
City eventually levelled when Walker’s shot from the right-hand side of the penalty area was blocked and the loose ball fell to Rodri, whose strike went in via a deflection off Trevoh Chalobah.
Chelsea: Petrovic, Gusto, Disasi, Colwill, Chilwell, Caicedo, Fernandez, Sterling (Nkunku 64), Gallagher, Jackson (Casadei 82), Palmer (Chalobah 71).
Subs not used: Bettinelli, Mudryk, Madueke, Gilchrist, Samuels-Smith, Harrison.
