Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku knew who was to blame for Man City draw vs Chelsea

With Jack Grealish out, Bernardo Silva not fit enough to start and John Stones presumably not ready to play twice a week, Pep Guardiola had a choice to make with his Manchester City lineup against Chelsea.

He could try and replicate the strong lineup he named in Denmark. Or he could embrace the chaos like he did at Stamford Bridge and recall Jeremy Doku and Julian Alvarez. He opted for the latter, leaning into the attacking options he had available, even if it invited pressure. Manuel Akanji has been good enough in the Stones role, pushing into midfield, but he isn't Stones, with the experimental XI left space for Chelsea on the transitions.

Cole Palmer and Raheem Sterling exploited the City deficiencies, with Rodri exposed and Palmer constantly finding teammates in space on Chelsea's right after catching Nathan Ake out of position. It resulted in Raheem Sterling's goal, and Chelsea's gameplan of committing men forward on the transition worked perfectly time and again.

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Chelsea continued their gameplan in the second half, with Palmer constantly unchallenged when playing simple balls into the empty channel. Doku was providing City's main outlet, with erratic results when it came to his end product, but he was at least keeping the pressure on. It felt like City's gameplan was running away from them, replaced by willpower on and off the pitch. It was not the way Guardiola would like to win games - and the point they came away with proved as much.

We have picked out five talking points from a frustrating evening in the title race, which gave Liverpool and Arsenal an advantage in the Premier League.

For all City's spirit in getting back into