Pep Guardiola said that Manchester City’s enthralling 4-4 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge was “a good advert for the Premier League.”
City led three times but were constantly pegged back by a Chelsea side who simply refused to back down. Erling Haaland’s dubious penalty was shortly cancelled out by a Thiago Silva header before Chelsea went ahead for the only time in the game courtesy of Raheem Sterling. Manuel Akanji levelled matters again on the stroke of halftime.
Haaland then grabbed his second to put City back in front. Nicolas Jackson then got in on the act to make it 3-3 and Rodri thought he had the last say when his deflected effort crashed in off Silva to put City ahead for a third time with four minutes of normal time to play.
However, it was another one of City’s former that done the damage as Cole Palmer dispatched a 95th-minute penalty after Ruben Dias clattered substitute Armando Broja.
It was one of the finest games the Premier League has ever seen, and Guardiola stated that it only serves to increase the reputation of the league being the best in the world.
Guardiola said: A good advert for the Premier League. Quality players, ability to keep the ball, to drive with the ball many metres so you have to defend deep.
“But in general we are really pleased. Nothing to regret, we did everything, we could do better, some mistakes but they happen when the opponent bring you in these conditions, the high level…
“We were close but eight minutes extra time is a lot of time and I think it’s a result [where] we have our momentum, especially winning 3-2 and having two or three transitions that could, not kill the game because still 30 minutes to play, but in that moment we were close. It was control and after we made some bad decisions or good decisions for them and we draw.”
He added: “What’s important is we go into the international break top of the league. I couldn’t expect that after that Arsenal game when we lost. We are qualified for the Champions League, where we are top of the league.
“Where we came from, wow, that is really, really good. Now they can rest, come back fit and the next games are really, really tough.”
