39 min: Sterling’s cute backheel releases Mendy down the left again. Mendy clumps an awful cross through the box and out for a throw on the other side. “This somehow still feels like it has 0-0 written all over it,” writes Grant Tennille. “Even with so much ostensibly at stake, the dominant vibe is more ‘two international heavyweights meeting in the early stages of a tournament qualification campaign’ than make-or-break, ‘sharp end of the season’ electricity.”
38 min: ... nothing. Nix. Bupkis. Nada.
37 min: A little space for Mendy down the left. He whips low and hard towards the near post, forcing Christensen to hoick behind for a corner. From which ...
35 min: Sterling skitters down the left wing at speed. He cuts infield and wonders where Aguero is. He overruns the ball a little, allowing Kante to make half a block. Sterling barges through the challenge and takes an instinctive shot from 25 yards. It’s heading into the bottom left, but not at any particular speed, and Mendy flops on it without drama.
33 min: Gilmour sends Werner scampering down the left. Werner reaches the edge fo the box and, using Ake as cover, tries to curl into the top right. It’s always heading wide and high, and it turns out he would have been offside earlier in the move anyway.
32 min: James, by the right-hand edge of the City D, drives low and hard. The ball’s going miles wide left, but Werner diverts it neatly into the top right with a flick of his boot. He doesn’t bother celebrating, though, as he knows he’s miles offside. The flag goes up.
30 min: Both teams are threatening to score an opener. Pulisic and Ziyech combine down the middle and nearly tee up Werner; then up the other end, Jesus has two goes at releasing Aguero down the middle, but can’t get his pass right on either occasion. Yep, intriguing rather than exciting.
28 min: Werner takes on Laporte down the left. Just as he’s about to skip past, Laporte steps on his toe. A large cry of pain. No free kick, though. Werner’s soon back up after a worrying 20-second period of rolling about. Any player who stays down between now and 29 May will have Chelsea and City fans’ hearts in mouths.
26 min: City stroke it around the middle of the park, without too much urgency.
24 min: Christensen’s miscue and Aguero’s industry leads to a City corner on the left. Torres whips to the near post. Alonso is forced to eyebrow out. Take two. Mendy claims the second one from the middle of a crowded six-yard box.
22 min: Another free kick out on the Chelsea right. They load the City box. Ziyech takes. Ake clears. This has been intriguing rather than exciting so far, which is better than nothing.
20 min: Both of these clubs have kept 31 clean sheets in all competitions this season. Next best is Manchester United with 24. So here we are.
18 min: Some space for Werner down the left. He teases Ake, pushing him back and further back, then rolls across for Gilmour. His strike is blocked the second it leaves his boot, Mendy doing the brave work.
17 min: Aguero spins in the middle of the park, finding space to launch an attack. Sterling and Jesus assist, the ball eventually laid off for Rodri, whose low drive deflects wide left for a corner. Nothing much happens at the set piece.
15 min: Chelsea are growing into this now. James is sent scampering down the right by Gilmour. His low cross is easy meat for Ederson. A poor delivery, given Werner and Pulisic were up with play.
14 min: The resulting free kick is useless.
13 min: VAR decides yellow will suffice. Sterling put studs on ankle there, and he didn’t look totally in control. He’s a lucky chap.
12 min: A little bit of possession in the midfield for Chelsea. Rudiger has the chance to release Werner down the inside left, but misplaces the pass. Cancelo intercepts. Then Chelsea come again. Werner is about to receive possession to the right of the D. Sterling slides in. Foul. Yellow. But is it more? VAR is going to check.
Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling (right) fouls Chelsea’s Timo Werner. Photograph: Martin Rickett/Pool/PA
Werner reacts to the foul which put Sterling’s name into the ref’s book. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/NMC Pool
10 min: City look dangerous every time they move forward ... until they reach the final third. So far Chelsea have held their shape, and there’s no way through. A pattern may have been set.
8 min: Sterling and Jesus combine well down the inside-left channel, advancing at speed. The ball breaks left to Mendy, who hares in from the wing and hits a first-time drive across the face of goal and well wide right.
6 min:Chelsea haven’t seen much of the ball yet. They’re unlikely to be overly concerned. Their possession percentage against Real Madrid was somewhere in the 30s, if memory serves, yet they carved out a plethora of chances.
4 min: A simple long ball down the City right. Christensen misreads the bounce, allowing Torres to race off. Torres has Aguero in the middle, but opts for the sensational, looking for the top right from the edge of the box. An early chance spurned.
Ferran Torres of Manchester City surges forwarde. Photograph: Tom Flathers/Manchester City FC/Getty Images
2 min: A long ball down the right evades Werner. Other than that, it’s been a nondescript start.
1 min: According to Gary Neville on Sky, City are playing 5-1-4.
Chelsea get the ball rolling ... but only after everyone takes a knee.There’s no room for racism. Challenge it. Report it. Change it. Kick it out.
The blues are out! City in sky, Chelsea in royal. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!
Raheem Sterling (right) leads oiut his Manchester City team. Photograph: Tom Flathers/Manchester City FC/Getty Images
Sky ask Thomas Tuchel if the Real Madrid game had a bearing on his selection tonight. “It was a huge effort, not only physically but mentally. We had one day less to recover, we had travel to do. You could see in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley what one day can do, we did not have to travel, they had after Dortmund, so we needed to do some changes. Also to prove we have trust in our whole squad, which is what we have. Game is on.”
Sky ask an extremely relaxed Pep Guardiola what he discussed with Thomas Tuchel when the pair met moments earlier. “He gave me the tactics for the final of the Champions League. Now I know it. Everything! No, we have a long relationship, when I was in Munich he was in Dortmund and Mainz, he’s a good guy. His is a tough side. Always. Game on!”
Pre-match small talk. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/EPA
As isde rigueur these days, alarge crowd gathered outside the Etihad to wish Manchester City well upon their arrival. Just as they did for the Champions League semi-final against PSG, hundreds of fans lined the street leading up to the ground, giving it plenty as the team bus drove past slowly. It was the usual heady mix of blue flares, fireworks, people spilling into the road, peelers keeping order, and not much in the way of social distancing. The title may be clinched tonight in an empty stadium, but the champions-elect know they’ve made their people happy.
They’re blue, ba da bee. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images
The T shirt sellers outside the Etihad are in confident mood that the title will be clinched today. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/NMC Pool
Manchester City make nine changes to the XI sent out to beat PSG on Tuesday evening. Ederson and Ruben Dias are the only players to keep their places. Sergio Aguero is handed a start, nine years on from that title-clinching goal.
Chelsea are stable by comparison, making just five changes to the team named for the schooling of Real Madrid on Wednesday. Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, Billy Gilmour, Reece James and Marcos Alonso replace Kai Havertz, Mason Mount, Jorginho, Thiago Silva and Ben Chilwell.
It’s a dress rehearsal for the Champions League final … and so much more. For a start, there’s the not insignificant fact that Manchester City can secure their seventh English league championship this evening. Three points tonight, and they’ll be uncatchable at the top of the Premier League table. How they’d love to get the job done and freewheel towards their date with destiny in Istanbul.
Chelsea won’t be in the mood to faff about either. They need a top-four finish, to guarantee Champions League football next season, whatever their fate in Turkey, and that’s yet to be secured. Defeat today would give West Ham, Spurs and Liverpool the chance to make up some ground, with tricky fixtures against Arsenal, Leicester and Aston Villa to come, and that’s before considering the FA Cup final.
Both teams could do with a result, then … all the while making sure not to fully show their hand ahead of the big showdown on 29 May. We may have half an idea about who is prioritising what once the teamsheets drop, but then both clubs have such luxuriously deep squads, you could parse the starting XIs until the cows come home and still be none the wiser. Perhaps we should go with it, as we find out whether City will be crowned champions tonight, or if Chelsea are able to consolidate their top-four spot. It’s on!
Kick off: 5.30pm BST.
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