Title Clash Between Chelsea and Man City Could Decide Premier League Season

It’s a matchup that has come to define the Premier League over the past decade or so. Chelsea and Manchester City are the new order, taking the places of traditional superpowers like Arsenal and Manchester United. In 2015, petrodollars rule over everything else, with the Premier League’s best two clubs set to clash on Saturday.

For a long spell before the festive period, it looked like Chelsea might not even have significant competition for this season’s Premier League title. At their lowest point (November), City were cut eight points adrift, as Mourinho’s side made it all the way to December without losing a match. 

Jon Super/Associated Press

The Invincibles they may not be, but the Blues still look to be the Premier League’s most complete and accomplished side, with Mourinho assembling a team that could claim to be his best ever. Praise will, however, be reserved for the end of the campaign, when Chelsea’s trophy count can be tallied. 

However, if City can find their attacking groove—which they have done over the winter schedule—Chelsea could find themselves in a title race, the likes of which Mourinho has never experienced before in England. Even for the Special One such an eventuality could put him under extraordinary pressure to succeed—the kind that finally broke him at Real Madrid.

In fact, Pellegrini seems to be the only current Premier League manager capable of getting under Mourinho’s skin. While it might not harness the same ill-feeling as the days of the once-bitter feud between Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, the personal rivalry between Mourinho and Pellegrini is as close to that mark the Premier League can now offer.

Jon Super/Associated Press

The contempt between the two men stretches all the way back to when Mourinho was in charge at Real Madrid, with Pellegrini at Malaga. Over the course of his three-year tenure at the Santiago Bernabeu, the Portuguese took it upon himself to aim a number of loaded barbs at the veteran coach, reminding Pellegrini of the fact that he had replaced the Chilean at Real.

And yet it is Mourinho who more frequently rises to the jibes and sneering remarks Pellegrini sends his way, with their rivalry continuing with the two men moving to the Premier League from Spain last season.

"Three or four times he says he doesn’t want to speak about me or my teams—he did it once more," complained Mourinho ahead of the last league meeting between Chelsea and City, as per Neil Ashton of the Daily Mail. "It’s for you to comment. When I said I don’t want to speak about him, that’s what I try to do."

City’s season has been somewhat handicapped by injuries to key players, but Sergio Aguero, David Silva and Joe Hart should all be involved for Pellegrini’s side having trained freely this week. They will be without Yaya Toure and new signing Wilfried Bony, given Ivory Coast’s continued participation in the Africa Cup of Nations.

The incumbent Premier League champions were somewhat fortunate to come away with a point in their previous league meeting against Chelsea, with Frank Lampard playing the part of reluctant pantomime villain by netting the equaliser at the Etihad Stadium.

Tim Ireland/Associated Press

Chelsea’s preparations for the clash—which will see Lampard return to Stamford Bridge for the first time since he left at the end of last season—have been focused around one player. Of course, that one player happens to be the battle-hardened face of the Blues’ title challenge.

According to BBC Sport, Diego Costa has appealed the violent conduct charge handed out to him for his apparent stamp on Liverpool’s Emre Can as Chelsea hope to free up their Brazilian-born forward for the biggest game of their season so far. It seems likely that Costa’s appeal will be thrown out, but Mourinho recognises the importance of having his battering ram of a striker against Man City.

With just five points between the two sides, Saturday’s match could either set the Premier League title race alight or douse it for good. The clash between Chelsea and Man City might not just define a season, but decide it.