Frank Lampard has now scored against 39 different Premier League teams. He just didn’t ever imagine Chelsea would be one of them.
Not since Denis Law believed he had condemned Manchester United to relegation – also in a Manchester City shirt, coincidentally – has a player looked so mixed up about scoring.
Lampard’s 85th minute equaliser came at the end of an afternoon in which his name had been sung as enthusiastically by the away end, as by the fans of his new club.
They held up banners in his honour, and continued to celebrate and embrace him as one of their own. Lampard said he didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye. He must have been relishing the opportunity, yet privately dreading a send-off like this.
More importantly, Zabaleta deserved to go. Already booked for a foul on Eden Hazard – there were nine yellow cards, including Zabaleta’s two – he was reckless in his challenge on Diego Costa and became involved in some pointless grappling after the event. It was the foul that earned the second yellow card, though, and Zabaleta’s protests were futile and misguided.
He has been sent-off in six of his seven seasons with City and, for all his excellence, has a tendency to hot-headedness. So does Costa, but he was the wronged party here. In the circumstances, City have no cause for complaint.
Chelsea’s breakthrough, which followed soon after, was poetry in motion. Costa held the ball up in midfield perfectly, moving it on and finally out to Hazard on the right flank. His cross was precise as was substitute Andre Schurrle’s run, arriving at the far post as he so often does for club and country, sharper than City’s covering defenders, a goal waiting to happen.
It could have been all over from there had Costa not hit a post after 81 minutes. This meant he failed to match the Premier League scoring record of eight in five games – held by Micky Quinn at Coventry City.
In these days of sprees measured in hundreds of millions, it is nice to know that an old school figure like Quinn can still have his name in the record books. Lampard, too. Thirty-nine and counting. Don’t think it ends here. He couldn’t stop himself, you know, even if he tried.
