Chelsea injuries only a partial explanation for Manchester City capitulation

Chelsea played out their FA Cup match against Manchester City as if in a daze, and this can’t solely be explained by their lengthy injury list.

And all this without Erling Haaland. They didn’t need him. Manchester City purred to a comfortable win against Chelsea, a performance which suggested that their brief stutters before and after the mid-winter break are already coming to an end.

They cruised to a three-goal half-time lead, pulling out of sight before Chelsea even seemed to have woken up.

And for all the injuries, this was a Chelsea performance that raised questions about how the first-team squad is functioning behind the scenes. Because, as Alan Shearer mentioned shortly after the players had departed the pitch at half-time, no amount of injuries could account for a lethargic and sloppy performance against a purring Manchester City team who were only too happy to take full advantage.

Haaland, who’d largely been anonymous at Stamford Bridge in Manchester City’s slightly cumbersome 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge, was missing altogether for this match, which was somewhat surprising considering that we’d been led to believe that he’d spent the entirety of the World Cup at home, getting his software updated in front of the television.

It’s already known that when Haaland isn’t scoring goals – which is rare – he can drift out of a game completely, but it still felt as though perhaps he could have done with another run-out rather than sitting it out on the bench. It turned out that Manchester City were fine without him on this occasion, which doesn’t really say much for the state of their opponents.

It seems strange to say it, considering that Chelsea are now automatically linked with every footballer valued at more than £30m, but that’s the sort of luxury that Graham Potter could do with at the moment. The games keep coming thick and fast and the injuries continue to mount up.

At kick-off, Chelsea’s injury list read: N’Golo Kante (again), Reece James (again), Wesley Fofana (again), Ben Chilwell, Armando Broja, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Raheem Sterling, Christian Pulisic and Edouard Mendy. Mount was in the starting eleven, but it had been a little touch and go beforehand whether he would start a couple of days earlier; it’s difficult to imagine he would have started if there were more options.

This difference in resources obviously isn’t due to money. Chelsea seem to have access to extremely deep pockets indeed. Presuming that…