WE THOUGHT we had seen the game of the season after Chelsea beat Spurs 4-1 last Monday evening. We were wrong.

Sunday’s astonishing match here at Stamford Bridge eclipsed it, as former Manchester City attacker Cole Palmer came back to haunt his former boss Pep Guardiola with a 95th-minute penalty to salvage a point.

After another extraordinary, action-packed 90 minutes, it was honours even in West London, with the sides sharing eight goals between them in a dramatic, frantic, and thrilling Premier League clash in front of 39,532 enthralled fans.

The similarities between this week’s games in N17 and SW6 were tangible. Both teams attacked incessantly, relentlessly and with as much quality as sheer reckless abandon allows.

The difference this weekend was that both sides ended with 11 men on the pitch. Which meant this contest was as evenly matched as a truly breathtaking world title fight, as these two heavyweights went toe to toe for 90 incredible minutes. 

Just like all the best prizefights, both protagonists sized each other up first, before embarking on a stirring display of power and technique, courage and character, class, and quality — with neither taking a single backward step. With the added bonus that for once, everyone was talking about the football, rather than VAR.

Chelsea made one change from the side that started the chaotic match at Spurs. Marc Cucurella in for Levi Colwill. While Manuel Akanji returned to the City side to replace John Stones as Pep Guardiola made five changes from the midweek Champions League victory over Young Boys Berne, with Bernardo Silva, Rodri, Julian Alvarez, and Jeremy Doku reinstated.

On 15 minutes Conor Gallagher — who was one of many who had an excellent game throughout — fired a shot at City keeper Ederson as a precursor to the thriller about to unfold. 

The match sparked into life, when Marc Cucurella pulled back Erling Haaland — and his shirt — during Silva’s cross into the box, as Anthony Taylor awarded a penalty after a VAR check.

Unperturbed, Haaland fired home with aplomb, sending Blues keeper Robert Sanchez the wrong way. 1-0 to the visitors after 25 minutes. The successful spot-kick making it 16 goals in all competitions for the mighty Scandinavian forward this term, as well as 49 in 47 league appearances during his City career.  

Unbowed Chelsea attacked. Rodri fouled Enzo Fernandez as Blues captain Reece James curled his free-kick around the wall, only for Ederson to touch over the bar.

From Gallagher’s resulting corner, Thiago Silva made an excellent run into space at the near post, to nod home past the Brazil keeper, in a superbly executed move to level at 1-1, only 240 seconds after City took the lead.

The teams continued to trade blows. Rodri won the ball back, sending Phil Foden on a driving run before the 22-year-old fired narrowly past Sanchez’s far post.

That was before Raheem Sterling slotted home from close range on 37 minutes to put Chelsea 2-1 ahead. The goal coming after a sweeping Chelsea move that saw the excellent Cole Palmer feed James, who pounced upon Josko Gvardiol’s error before crossing for the player that England boss Gareth Southgate sadly appears to have discarded. 

Sterling, who impressed throughout, underlined the fact that Southgate refusing to select the City attacker is fast becoming a glaring omission bordering on an aberration.

It was a shame Southgate decided not to attend this match as Sterling consistently showed his quality by cutting in against Three Lions colleague Kyle Walker, and generally troubling his former teammate during the match. 

With four minutes to go until the break, Sanchez made an excellent save low down to his left to keep out a powerful shot from the marauding Haaland, as the game ramped up the tempo still further. The excellent Sanchez then denied Foden moments later.

The eye-catching Sterling drove at the heart of a backpedalling City defence, only for Nicolas Jackson to take the ball off him with a snatched low shot that failed to add to the treble he scored at White Hart Lane on Monday evening.

As the fourth official signalled an additional six minutes to be played, Akanji found himself in acres of space in the box, and, allowed a free header from Silva’s pinpoint cross angled the ball into Sanchez’s right-hand corner to make the score 2-2. Much to the annoyance of boss Pochettino, whose incandescent reaction on the touchline made you fear for his blood pressure, such was his fury. 

After the thriller in N17 on Monday evening, you wondered what was next after such a breathless opening 45 minutes.  

We didn’t have to wait too long to find out. Of course, there was no let-up.

Haaland bundled the ball over the line from Alvarez’s low cross, with VAR ruling the goal valid, after checking for handball from the Norwegian striker — to make it 3-2 to City a minute after the restart. 

Taylor booked Doku for diving in the box. Doku, the Belgium-born 21-year-old former Stade Rennais star then showed the acceptable side of his game, when twisting and turning James’s before testing Ederson with a low shot. In an eventful few moments for Doku, boss Guardiola decided he had seen enough and replaced him with Jack Grealish. 

Grealish, all rock-star demeanour and huge calves — who had been swapping chat with musician Jack Harlow pitchside before the game — immediately fed Foden, whose shot was saved by Sanchez, as both sides went into hell for leather attacking mode. 

It was the talented 21-year-old Palmer’s turn next, who threaded his way through the City backline after effortlessly taking the ball on the half turn, before Ederson raced out to block.  

However, as the rain lashed down incessantly on this dark November evening, the pressure eventually told, when Jackson followed up Gallagher’s fierce low shot, showing quick feet and a predator’s instinct to slot home past Ederson. 

The 30-year-old former Benfica keeper should have guided the ball away from danger on the greasy surface, rather than pushing it back into the path of the onrushing forward, who gladly made it 3-3 on 67 minutes. 

Amid a thunderous atmosphere generated by the two sets of fans, the superb Sterling fed substitute Mala Gusto in the box, who proceeded to finish with anything but gusto, with the 20-year-old former Lyon defender firing the ball high over Ederson’s bar with the angle opening up. 

With four minutes remaining Rodri fired home via a big deflection off Silva to wrongfoot Sanchez, and make it 4-3 — as players celebrated with their delirious fans housed in the Shed End believing City had done enough to achieve a hard-fought victory. 

Yet, with the week Chelsea have had, when the fourth official announced to the crowd that there were to be eight minutes of injury time, you felt there would be one more moment of drama. 

And so it came, when substitute Armando Broja was felled on the wet turf by Ruben Dias for a certain penalty, after Sterling’s ball into the box.

Up stepped nerveless former City striker Palmer, who beat his former colleague to make it 4-4, to notch his fourth goal in nine games for the Blues, after one in 19 for the Citizens.

Leaving his old boss Guardiola standing emotionless at the touchline, prompting many to wonder just why the Catalan genius sold his young striker to the Blues for what seems like an underpriced £42m in the summer.  

“They’re a fantastic team,” the Catalan manager said after the game, adding: “I would say it was a fair result.” In this, his 882nd match as manager across Spain, Germany and England, it was the first time Guardiola saw his team score and conceded four goals.

No wonder another former City player, Sterling, walked off triumphant, like a gladiator, bare chested, tattoos showing. If his performance in this game didn’t convince the England boss of his merits, then absolutely nothing else will. 

Speaking at the end, Sterling said: “We had a right go. We showed our personality and showed that we believed in ourselves. It was a good performance and [a game] that I feel we could have got more from.”

As for the rest of us, perhaps it is just as well there is a forthcoming international break, because the top division is ridiculously exciting at the moment. Not least because this clash was only the fifth match in Premier League history which contained as many as four equalising goals.

Speaking at the final whistle, Blues boss Mauricio Pochettino said: “That is why we all say the Premier League is the best league in the world.  

“If we want to build something special here at Chelsea then it is in this way that we need to play. It was another unbelievable game, scoring four goals again against a team that for me is the best in the world.

“It is good to go into the international break with that feeling.”

With the top four teams separated by a mere two points, this season is already shaping to be a classic. 

Just like this incredible match.