Manchester City 2 - Chelsea 0: Initial reaction and community rating form

Chelsea suffered a deserved 2-0 loss at the hands of Manchester City. It was a poor performance and a poor result. And not much else to say. The first half was awful. Yuck! Ewww! Chelsea team were set up to play on the counter, which is fine as long as we can keep it tight defensively (we didn't), break effectively on counter (far from it!) and take advantage of any set-piece opportunities (*sigh*). Petr Cech kept the team in the game and Chelsea were lucky to have went into halftime with a clean sheet.

I don't think I am allowed to use the kind of words I would like to use in order to describe second half. So I will just keep quiet. Some notes:

• I can totally understand why Benitez went with a counter-attacking game plan. Manchester City aren't playing that well at this moment but they are still a good team playing at home. But Chelsea left so much space between the lines defensively and lost the ball way too cheaply on the break. Poor.
• Remember when we used to take quality corners and free-kicks? Those were the good days...
• Was there a lonelier man in the world than Demba Ba in the opening 20 minutes of this game? I bet he wished he had somehow sneaked his phone in and play Fruit Ninja or something.
• I watched the game on Fox Soccer Channel and got a taste of Gus Johnson commentary. Understandably poor at the moment but I'm sure he will improve; by "I'm sure," I meant "I really really hope."
• Lampard's penalty was disappointing but Ba showed his pace and strength in winning the foul, great center forward play.
• Mancini makes the first move in the second half, bringing on Carlos Tevez for Jack Rodwell. City took the lead soon after. I don't even want to talk about Benitez's substitution; you go ahead and rant in the comments (like you needed my encouragement anyway).
• Thoroughly rafaluted by the rafalution.