Chelsea Dismantled By City

Attention Tottenham, Liverpool and Aston Villa: it's time to start playing some of your best soccer.

While the entire Premier League was sitting and waiting to see just how the Wayne Bridge/John Terry situation would play out, the real story was found with Carlos Tevez as the Argentinean was foreman of the 4-2 demolition of Chelsea.

Tevez bagged a double after returning from his homeland after a 10-day respite to care for his sick child. After a soft goal to end the first half (an epic fail by Chelsea keeper Hilario), Tevez put the game out of reach with a penalty in the 76th minute.

Chelsea was victimized all day by Shay Given's goalkeeping, as well as Manchester City's counterattack. The Blue also fell out of favor with referee Mike Dean, as the West London club ended the game with nine men (Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti saw red).

But as mentioned earlier, the build-up to the game was fueled by all the tabloid attention surrounding Bridge and Terry. The game itself was mostly empty of any sort of conflict. The opening handshakes were something else though; Bridge declined to shake Terry's hand, providing for a moment of awkwardness between the two:

After the game, Manchester City striker Craig Bellamy took a shot at Terry saying:

''You guys [the media] make a lot more of it you know. I know what JT is like and nothing surprises me about it, so I'm not going to comment on that. I think everybody in football knows what the guy is like, but that's off the field. On it he's an outstanding player. He's a great captain for Chelsea. It's always going to be difficult when you play him and his team.''

But this blogger was impressed with City's performance at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea lost for only the third time in 115 EPL games. The top-four certainly looks like a real possibility for Roberto Mancini's squad.