The Londoners abandoned their suicidal high line defensive strategy, sat deeper in defence and strangled the life out of Roberto Mancini's side who had started like champions, but after defender Gael Clichy's 58th minute red card, ended the match looking like many City teams of old: lost and confused.
Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas's insistence on his defenders holding their line some 40 or 50 metres from goal to give his team extra attacking verve has been exposed as largely unworkable, especially in the 3-1 defeat at Manchester United and the 5-3 home loss to Arsenal.
It cost them the first goal after two minutes on Monday at Stamford Bridge when Pablo Zabaleta found Sergio Aguero just inside City's half.
Aguero executed some exquisite skill before his pinpoint pass allowed Mario Balotelli to break free just inside Chelsea's half, and then score after a surging run took him past goalkeeper Petr Cech.
Villas-Boas gave a hint that the players took the decision to drop back rather than him, when he told reporters: "In the first minutes, we suffered a lot and the players felt they needed to adjust.
"We started with a medium block defensively, but it was difficult for us and the players stepped back. Then they felt the confidence coming back to them. They were brave to adapt and we showed good strength of character to win this game."
Villas-Boas added: "Our objective was to shorten the lead at the top and to do that, we needed to beat City. We adapted to the circumstances, we felt how the game was going and deserved to get the win."
Aguero should have doubled City's lead after 11 minutes but with David Silva playing some inspired football and Yaya Toure dominating play like Patrick Vieira did in Arsenal's title-winning era, it seemed City were set for all three points.
