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Chelsea and Man City are head and shoulders above their rivals, says Graeme Souness

City found 'another gear' to get back in to the game

Frank Lampard
Image: Frank Lampard: Netted Man City's equaliser

Excellent defensive displays from Man City and Chelsea show they're 'head and shoulders above their rivals', says Graeme Souness.

The reigning Premier League champions welcomed this season's title favourites to the Etihad Stadium in an entertaining 1-1 draw on Sunday.

City’s Pablo Zabaleta was red carded for a second bookable offence early in second half before Andre Schurrle tapped in an Eden Hazard cross five minutes later to set Chelsea on course for a fifth successive Premier League win, but they were denied by Frank Lampard, who scored an equaliser against his former club.

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Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness was extremely impressed by both side's astute defensive displays and says the Premier League rivals are setting the standard this season.

Souness said: "I thought it was a cracking game of football - You couldn’t write that – Frank coming on and getting the goal. 

"You have to give the manager [Pellegrini] great credit; all the changes he made were all sensible and correct.

"A lot of people judge games of football on how many goals are scored. If this is their standard of football these two teams, they are head and shoulders above any else out there right now."

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Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and Graeme Souness discuss Pablo Zabaleta's red card

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"With 10 men City seemed to find another gear,” added Souness.

“There’s often the temptation - it’s psychological - to sit in there and think ‘we’re 1-0 up and we’ve done it playing against 11 men’, so with 10 men they’re thinking it would be easy. But City seemed to find another gear and you have to give great credit to them because they kept on the front-foot and they never-ever gave up and got their just rewards. 

City will think, and they’ll have an argument to think, that they were the best team today and should have won.
Graeme Souness

"City will think, and they’ll have an argument to think, that they were the best team today and should have won"

Fellow Sky Sports experts Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher agreed that both teams put in inspirational defensive displays, especially in comparison to Manchester United's 5-3 loss at Leicester City seen earlier in the day on Super Sunday.

Gary Neville added: "It was good game. Both defences played really well, there was a standard there of how to defend in big matches that others can follow.

"Diego Costa didn’t play badly, but he got aggressively dealt with like you’d expect centre backs to properly deal with a top centre forward.

"You should have to play well to get chances, that match we saw earlier with United was a joke."

While former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher said: "Sometimes it’s good to watch two teams defend properly. In the Manchester United game there were goals going in left, right and centre but when you see the top games and the top players you’re going to see the top defences."

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