Manchester City sent out a strong signal of intent towards their English rivals by beating the Champions League winners, Chelsea 3-2 to claim the Community Shield on Sunday.
Playing in front of a packed Villa Park crowd, it were the Blues who grabbed the early initiative through a http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Samir-Nasri-c32360
all get on the score sheet in the second half, as City took the game to the Blues.
Even though Ryan Bertrand managed to reduce the deficit to a single goal 12 minutes from time, the Citizens were never in danger of relinquishing their grip on the game, as they successfully protected their one-goal lead to claim the silverware.
Amid an electric atmosphere in the stadium, both the teams made a slow start to the game. The preliminary moments proved to be a closely contested midfield battle, with neither side getting a good sight of their opponent’s goal.
City made early advances through Tevez and Nasri, but their weak efforts were easily held by the Blues shot stopper, Petr Cech.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Eden-Hazard-c11863, the only summer signing to have appeared in the game, then tried to force the issue in the 28th minute, as he darted inside the City box. However, he failed to trouble the goalkeeper with his ensuing shot.
Despite being the second best of the two, it was http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 who secured the lead against the tempo of the game, in the 40th minute.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ramires-c30523 pushed inside the box before unleashing a perfect pass to an unmarked Torres, who took a tidy first touch with his right foot, and chipped the ball over an onrushing Pantilimon to open the scoring.
However, only moments later, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Aleksandar-Kolarov-c4475, which earned him a straight red card.
From there on, the match carried a totally different complexion, as Roberto Mancini’s men started to make the extra man count.
With the Eastlanders clearly dominating the proceedings since the restart, it was no surprise that they were level on terms in the 53rd minute. Toure collected a poor clearance from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/John-Terry-c18895 just at edge of the box, and drilled a powerful low
shot past http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Petr-Cech-c29837 to kick start his side’s resurrection.
Hardly settled from the Ivorian footballer’s peach of a strike, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Roberto-c31294 Di Matteo saw his team plummet further down in the 58th minute, as Tevez fired an unstoppable shot just from the edge of the box at the top right corner to put his team in
front.
With the situation fast spinning out of Chelsea’s control, Nasri stepped up to inflict further damage on the London side, by turning in a probing loss cross from Kolarov in the 65th minute.
Even though a wobble from Pantilimon of http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Daniel-c9879 Sturridge’s shot allowed Bertrand to halve City’s advantage, the goal proved to be inconsequential, as the league winners held on to their lead and engraved their name on the Community Shield.
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