Pep Guardiola gets Man City positive from familiar Chelsea warning

The biggest compliment you could pay Chelsea on Sunday was that it looked and felt like Manchester City were playing a Mauricio Pochettino team.

Pochettino has a reputation as one of the best coaches in the game and while it is still early days for his young Chelsea side (assembled at extortionate cost, it should be said) they took City to places in that match that the Blues have not been in since they faced Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena or Real Madrid at the Bernabeu last season. If the former Spurs boss can work out of West London to push Chelsea back to where they were, Pep Guardiola is right that they will be challenging for the title sooner rather than later.

Their slow start means it is unlikely to be this season though, and that accentuates how good City's has been. By picking up the wins early on, they are now 12 points ahead of Pochettino's challengers and a team with their high standards are almost certainly not going to be caught up with almost a third of the season done already.

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And while it is right to point out that chaotic games like Sunday's are not what Guardiola wants, City were still minutes away from picking up all three points and ultimately emerged undefeated from it to stay a point clear of the rest of the pack. That is important for two reasons.

The first is because of the mentality shown. It is one thing to dig deep and survive when you are in Munich or Madrid chasing a Treble, and another to do it when you've already won the Treble and are playing a November game that will prove to be one step in 38 of winning another Premier League.

Yet,