PL Hangover: Hazard Warning for Rivals as City and Guardiola Count the Costa

If on the morning of Saturday's El Clasico Pep Guardiola took an idle moment to reminisce over a past life, by the afternoon his current one had ensured there would be no such time for nostalgia trips.

Looking quietly exhausted after a lunchtime encounter between Manchester City and Chelsea that proved anything but bloated, Guardiola was almost obtuse in his assessment of 90 minutes perhaps as engaging as anything he encountered in Spain.

A fixture of little noticeable history delivered an instant classic. Chelsea's 3-1 victory, an eighth in succession, sees them end the weekend three points clear at the Premier League summit. The odds are shortening on them still being there in May. 

Equal parts scintillating and spiteful, at once ugly and beautiful, it was a game that had so much. As a spectator, you almost craved less—or at least a lie down to make sense of it all.

When such a window for contemplation opens itself to Guardiola, he may, at least privately, reassess a tetchily delivered verdict to the press in which he insisted he had no regrets, per Sky Sports. 

Football's Edith Piaf is stubborn, but no fool.

When he watches back Sergio Aguero's assault on David Luiz, he will have regrets.

When he watches back Fernandinho handing over his temper to Cesc Fabregas' gamesmanship as a drunk does his wallet to a pickpocket, he will have regrets.

When he watches back his own acidulous double-fisted celebration in the direction of referee Anthony Taylor when a decision finally went City's way, he will have regrets.

When he watches back the gross ill-discipline that will now deprive him of two of his best players for four (Aguero) and three (Fernandinho) matches, respectively, he will have regrets.

When he watches back his false defence failing to keep a clean sheet for the 12th time in 14 Premier League matches, he will have regrets.

When he watches back his side's hopeless profligacy when at 1-0 up they could have easily extended their lead two or three times over, he will have regrets.

When he watches back and considers how Antonio Conte has created a clear identity for his Chelsea side, when in the same five-month period it would be impossible to say the same of his own work at City, he will have regrets.

On that final point, Guardiola has made 46 changes to his starting XI in 14 league games, the most of any Premier League manager, with a different lineup named in each of City's 23 games in all competitions.

Conte has made eight changes, with Nemanja Matic's injury on Saturday forcing him to tweak his starting XI for the first time in seven matches. In the past two seasons, the team that has made the fewest changes has won the league.

Guardiola might even regret post-mortem mutterings in which he said he was proud of his team, while conceding they are "not strong enough" in either box, per the Independent's James Riach.

It's a bit like a doctor telling you there's nothing to worry about with regards your eyesight, other than the fact you can't see. One can only presume Guardiola is embracing the Tony Hancock mantra: "I turned my deficiencies into a workable thing."

Maybe Guardiola is just more Frank Sinatra than Piaf. He may have a few (secret) regrets, but there's no doubt he does it his way. As Noel Gallagher once said of his brother Liam: "He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup." 

To Guardiola's credit, a Jose Mourinho touchline impersonation over the 90 minutes was not extended post-match, when he refused to blame Taylor's performance for either his side's defeat or behaviour in the melee that ensued after Aguero's red card.

A pair of first-half penalty appeals—when the ball nudged Gary Cahill's hand after he had gone to ground, presumably for a nap given his sluggishness throughout, and an N'Golo Kante challenge on Ilkay Gundogan—were mildly contentious. No more than that. Neither would induce the common man to take to the streets with a placard.

When Cesar Azpilicueta's insipid back pass let in Aguero down the left, though, Luiz subtly yet cynically stepped across the striker to block him off. Taylor looked at his linesman with eyes pleading for a flag that never materialised. He then appeared to reach for his whistle and a card that stayed in his pocket. 

"Anthony Taylor­—he's froze," was Gary Neville's instant verdict on Sky Sports co-commentary duty. It seemed a fair call on the incident that lit the game's blue touch paper on the half-hour mark.

It was all rather odd given the players had pretty much stopped en masse, while Luiz looked like he was about to explain why he definitely hadn't eaten the cake despite having chocolate smeared all over his face. He would have been fortunate to stay on.

With half of City's side snarling in his direction and Guardiola going what can only be described as gloriously ridiculous on the touchline, Taylor did as all good Englishmen do when confronted by drunken lads on a late train. He simply pretended not to have seen or heard anything in a display of British stoicism at its best. It's a wonder he didn't get a book out and put his headphones in.

After starting the season with 10 consecutive victories, City have now won just four of their last 13 matches. Notwithstanding the extraordinary UEFA Champions League win over Barcelona, City are starting to look very ordinary, at least at the Etihad Stadium, where they have not won in the league since September 17.

Guardiola's side has taken three points from its last four home games—consecutive 1-1 draws with Middlesbrough, Southampton and Everton preceded Saturday's defeat.

That's not to say City were a complete disaster. Frequently they made Chelsea's back three look as slipshod as their own. Football is a game of the finest margins. In the first 15 minutes of the second half, prior to Diego Costa cancelling out Cahill's comical own goal on the stroke of half-time, City knocked on the door more times than a postman will between now and Christmas Eve.

At half-time, Kevin De Bruyne would have been well within his rights to hand red slips to his team-mates telling them to collect their next goal from the nearest Royal Mail sorting office, given there was no one at home on Saturday to take his David Beckham-doppelganger deliveries. He will be glad he didn't.  

In the period of City's greatest ascendancy, after the interval, the Belgian was denied by his international team-mate Thibaut Courtois when played in after a surging Leroy Sane run infield, from left wing-back, and then somehow contrived to smash Chelsea's bar when trying to convert Jesus Navas' delivery into an open goal from no more than a couple of yards. The first completed cross of Navas' career deserved so much more. To be positioned on a plinth at the nearby National Football Museum, at the very least.

In between De Bruyne's wastefulness, Cahill had cleared off the line when Aguero rounded Courtois, after the Chelsea pair had indulged in an inappropriate bout of "After you, Claude—no, after you, Cecil," in hopelessly failing to deal with a back pass Azpilicueta will not enjoy watching again either.

The scales were irretrievably tipped on the hour mark. On only his second league start of the season, and first Chelsea appearance since the last one had ended with an ignominious half-time substitution in that 3-0 defeat to Arsenal in late September, Fabregas had up until this point resembled a veteran Test cricketer trying to get to grips with the Twenty20 format for the first time.

Fast and furious he is not, but given time and space, the Spanish schemer—who increasingly looks like he might better belong in a gentler age (serving cocktails in a 1920s jazz bar perhaps)—can pass a football like few others.

For 60 yards it held its pitch perfectly before dropping on its target—the cavernous chest of Costa—with a dull thud. The hapless, helpless, frankly useless Nicolas Otamendi was caught beneath it, eyes skywards like a slow child hypnotised by a plane overhead. In one movement Costa took it down, held off the Argentinian defender and, after making a yard, rifled it low past Claudio Bravo.

It was a nigh on carbon copy of the goal he scored against Arsenal a couple of seasons hence. Fabregas was the architect that day, too, just as he so often was for Costa in Chelsea's last title-winning campaign in 2014/15. 

"Fabregas-Costa, I thought that was a thing of the past," said Neville, having prior to kick-off pinpointed Fabregas as being Chelsea's weakest link in big matches.

If in the first half Costa was industrious if bypassed in having just 12 touches (the fewest of any player), thereafter he gave as complete a centre-forward performance as there will be this season.

It's hard to think of single player dominating a fixture so emphatically since Brian Glover's PE teacher in Kes, pretending to be Bobby Charlton in full strip, rampaged through pupils too scared to even attempt a tackle.

No Premier League player has been involved in more than Costa's 16 goals this season. A fifth assist of the campaign, for substitute Willian's goal, showed a guileful side to his game often overlooked given his more obvious battering-ram qualities. His hold-up play, all over the field, was exemplary. On song there is real beauty to the beast, a buffalo with Fred Astaire's feet.

Chelsea were fortuitous when Marcos Alonso's skewed clearance from Gundogan's cutback after a slaloming run fell to Fabregas, who played it to Eden Hazard. There's no more edifying sight in English football at present than the Belgian's partnership with Costa, and so it proved again as a deep Costa sumptuously turned Otamendi from his team-mate's pass.

The City defender had tried to nick the ball in so obvious a fashion he may as well have announced his intentions via a megaphone. Costa was on his way, and after swallowing ground quickly, he played Willian through on the angle.

The Brazilian's daisy cutter was true, Bravo's positioning truly awful. He looked like a kid trying to get out of his turn playing in goal by letting one in without making it seem too obvious. It's a surprise he didn't toss his gloves to John Stones after fetching the ball out of the back of the net.

Costa had been replaced, presumably due to exhaustion by the time Chelsea sealed the match with a third. It's now eight games and counting since he last picked up a booking. When he collected his Man of the Match award from Sky Sports, he said via his impromptu translator Luiz: "I cannot fight against the world." 

The proof is in the pudding. At the death, when it went all went a bit Royal Rumble, Costa leapt up from his seat, raced into the thick of it—and played peacemaker. From Attila the Hun to Henry Kissinger in 14 Premier League matches. Conte has quite the gift. 

Fabregas was again involved in Chelsea's clinching third goal as he picked up possession and played a short ball to Alonso, who proceeded to set in motion a foot race between Hazard and Aleksandar Kolarov with a long punt from back to front. The Serb could have set off on Friday and still been beaten to the ball by Hazard.

Having been guilty in the first period of uncharacteristic bashfulness in electing not to take on an open goal with his left foot having rounded Bravo, Hazard was in no mood to be similarly charitable as he unerringly delivered a near-post finish with his more favoured right peg.

Just like with Willian's goal, Chelsea had swept from back to front in a counter-attack concluded in little more time than Usain Bolt takes to win a medal. 

With Hazard's goal having arrived in the final minute, that should have just about been it. Aguero had other ideas.

Guardiola said his player's X-rated lung on Luiz was an accident, per the Independent's Riach: "He (Luiz) went down and he (Aguero) touched him. It wasn't intentional." He must have slipped the last time he did it to Luiz, too. 

It was the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand who said: "Rationalisation is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one's emotions."

If Costa's goal was quite the assist for Fabregas, it wasn't nearly as impressive as the one he got for Fernandinho's dismissal in the brawl.

The gentlest of slaps, almost tender in its execution, stoked the Brazilian's ire to the point he soon had the Chelsea man by the throat. Stepping backwards off the pitch, Fabregas edged towards the advertising hoardings before channeling his inner Paul Alcock to topple over them with a flourish that would surely have got a 10 from Len.

As would a Chelsea performance very much befitting of champions.