Chelsea: The two moments at Man City that showed Blues are short in a key area
Chelsea: The two moments at Man City that showed Blues are short in a key area
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Four minutes into a rather nightmarish Manchester City debut, the camera honed in on Abdukodir Khusanov and caught a lost, vacant stare. Cole Palmer lay at the centre-back’s feet having just been poleaxed. A referee’s yellow card flashed across his face in a blur. Beyond it, the Etihad Stadium scoreboard bore the evidence of Chelsea’s opening goal, gifted by a double-whammy of errors from the 20-year-old novice.
Khusanov looked understandably and utterly dazed, as if the unsuspecting victim of some Michael McIntyre gameshow scheme, like he’d lent on the toilet door in a Wagamama’s and suddenly tumbled into a Premier League game. But from an unlikely source came a hand of comfort, Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson offering a sympathetic pat on the stomach that said: ‘Don’t worry son, we’ve all been there’. On various days of many missed chances, Jackson certainly has.
It was a nice moment, one that set the classy-*hand-clap-emoji* mob wild. It was recognition from one professional to another that this game, at this level, can be brutally cruel, but soon moves on. It was also almost impossible to imagine Erling Haaland doing the same thing.
That is not to criticise Jackson’s humanity, nor to pretend smiling assassins cannot succeed. But Haaland is a killer, showcased in inspiring City’s 3-1 comeback victory on afternoon when Jackson confirmed again that, for all his merits and improvements, he is not.
