The game was less than three minutes old, and therefore Abdokodir Khusanov was less than three minutes into his debut for Manchester City, when he first started to wish that the pitch at the Etihad Stadium would open up and swallow him.

Khusanov is only 20 years old. He’s just a kid really. He’s the first player from Uzbekistan to play in the Premier League and he arrived in England last week from Lens for £33m, not knowing a word of English.

And then, after not much more than two minutes of his first game, against Chelsea, he stooped to try to head an awkward bouncing ball back to Ederson and only succeeded in heading it straight into the path of Nicolas Jackson.

Khusanov, part of a desperate £127m City January transfer splurge, was so nervous, so mortified, so uncertain that he could barely pass the ball. His teammates avoided passing to him as much as they could. He lasted until the 52nd minute, when Pep Guardiola substituted him.

But this was a game that did not turn on Khusanov’s mistake. It turned on another mistake. Another mistake committed by a player who looked horrified by what he had done, another mistake that was a reminder that this game is unforgiving and brutal and that its players, at this level, are held to the highest standards.

Man City swept Chelsea aside to win 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium and leapfrog them in the table

Noni Madueke gave the Blues an early lead after an error from debutant Abdukodir Khusanov

Josko Gvardiol notched an equaliser for City in the 42nd minute and they never looked back

So forget Khusanov, for a minute. This game turned on a calamitous error by Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, a player who is told almost every week by pundits or armchair critics on social media that he is not good enough for Chelsea.

Sanchez has been identified as a weak link in Chelsea’s billion pound trolley dash around world football. He has been told that Chelsea will never win anything with him in the side. He must yearn to prove those doubters wrong but this was not the day for that.

It was midway through the second half and the scores were locked at 1-1 when Sanchez rushed out of his goal in the mistaken assumption that he would get to a loose ball before Erling Haaland, City’s £250m man.

He realised his error too late. Haaland got to the ball first and even though Sanchez turned tail and tried to regain his ground, Haaland is simply too good and too deadly to let a mistake like that go unpunished. Haaland spun and chipped the ball expertly over Sanchez and into the net.

Sanchez fell to the ground briefly in horror. He beat his fist into the turf in a fury of self-loathing and then stood to take in the reality of what he had done and what he had cost his team. Chelsea never looked like recovering. Phil Foden extended City’s lead in the dying minutes.

Khusanov will live to fight another day. He looked particularly lugubrious as he walked on to the pitch to congratulate his teammates but this was his debut and he will get other chances. Sanchez may not. Days like this will seal his fate.

The Chelsea transfer gurus, who have already spent so much money, will be preparing to spend some more to replace him. If not now, then in the summer.

And so, in the end, after their horror show start, City eased past Chelsea. They looked comfortably the better side. And if Chelsea have a problem with their goalkeeper, they have others, too. They spent £1bn and forgot to buy a decent centre forward, too. And Enzo Fernandez still looks very, very ordinary for £108m.

Erling Haaland doubled their lead, punishing an error from Blues keeper Robert Sanchez

Phil Foden capped off the result for Guardiola’s side, scoring in his fourth straight league game

They have only won one of their last seven league games and they are falling fast. City will be particularly relieved to have beaten them here, particularly after their capitulation against PSG in the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.

As the departure of one of their great players, Kyle Walker, to AC Milan was confirmed, they needed a morale boost ahead of their showdown against Club Bruges this Wednesday, which will decide whether they squeeze into the Champions League play-offs and this gave it to them.

Their 3-1 victory lifted them above Bournemouth, Chelsea and Newcastle United into the top four and even if there is little hope of them catching Liverpool at the top, their win restored a little pride after so many recent reverses.

Guardiola had decided to throw Khusanov and fellow new signing, Omar Marmoush, straight into the starting line-up after City’s abject defeat in Paris but poor Khusanov had looked paralysed by nerves, even when he was walking down the line of Chelsea players, shaking their hands before kick-off. When the game actually began, things got a lot worse.

It wasn’t just Khusanov. City’s defending as a whole was shambolic at the start. A simple pass forward from Moises Caicedo played Palmer through on goal. Instead of shooting, Palmer squared the ball to Jackson but Jackson took it wide and laid it back to Sancho.

Sancho tried to pass the ball into the net but Khusanov threw himself at it and blocked it. For any watching neutral, there was an overwhelming sense of relief that the poor guy had finally done something right.

City tried to steady themselves. Foden hit the post with a rasping drive and, midway through the half, Josko Gvardiol turned inside Trevoh Chalobah inside the Chelsea area but lifted the ball over the bar from six yards out when he should have scored.

Josko Gvardiol, who was playing like a left winger, was City’s best player and most dangerous attacker and he got in front of Reece James to take a ball from Gundogan on his chest and poke his shot just side of Sanchez’s left hand post.

City now lie fourth place in the Premier League table and are undefeated in six league games

Meanwhile, Chelsea are winless in their last four away games and slipped to sixth place

A minute later, Gvardiol got the goal he deserved. Gundogan was the prompt once more and when Sanchez saved bravely from Matheus Nunes, the ball bounced out to Gvardiol, who swept it home exuberantly.

Chelsea gave Gundogan plenty of time to hit searching long balls forward to Haaland and, increasingly, City began to like their odds of making the tactic pay. Haaland was simply too strong and too good for the Chelsea defence.

So when Ederson launched a long ball out of defence midway through the second half and Haaland was too strong for Chalobah, Sanchez rushed from his goal and condemned himself to his fate.

City finished things off three minutes from the end when some brilliant hold-up play by Haaland opened up space for Foden to dash into. He held off a chasing pack and slotted his shot past Sanchez, for whom redemption must have felt like a distant prospect.