A late Rodri goal rescued a point for Manchester City to deny Chelsea victory and maintain his side’s long unbeaten home record.
City however still lost ground in the title race after seeing Liverpool and Arsenal both post emphatic wins earlier on Saturday, but this has to go down as a point gained given how close they came to defeat.
Raheem Sterling gave Chelsea the lead against his old team just before half-time, finishing off a brilliant counter-attack by meeting Nicolas Jackson’s cross, cutting inside Kyle Walker and curling his shot home
City were racking up the chances too, but seemed unable to take any of them, or even seriously test Chelsea goalkeeper Dorde Petrovic despite piling on the pressure in the second half.
Erling Haaland was the main culprit, with his worst miss coming when he somehow headed wide from a delicious Kevin de Bruyne cross.
The defending champions were facing their first home league defeat since November 2022, until Rodri struck with seven minutes to go.
After Walker’s shot was deflected into his path on the edge of the box, Rodri fired in a ferocious first-time strike that was going in anyway but took a touch off Chelsea substitute Trevoh Chalobah on its way into the net.
The draw sees City drop to third in the table, four points behind leaders Liverpool but with a game in hand – they can close the gap, and leapfrog second-placed Arsenal, if they beat Brentford on Tuesday.
Chelsea, who were minutes away from a third successive away win, stay 10th, but head to Wembley for next weekend’s Carabao Cup final on the back of one of their best displays of an erratic campaign.
This game did not have the goals or indeed the chaos of the 4-4 draw that these sides fought out in November, but Chelsea’s resistance, and threat on the break, made for another enthralling encounter.
Sterling, who won four Premier League titles in his seven years at the Etihad, was often criticised for his finishing during his time with City, but he showed great composure to beat Walker and made no mistake when he fired past Ederson too.
The England forward was unlucky not to make it 2-0 after the break, when he met Gusto’s cross from the right, but this time Ederson reacted brilliantly to keep the ball out.
