Sven-Göran Eriksson knows how it feels when the criticism appears to get personal. During the latter stages of his tenure as England head coach, it was an experience to which he became accustomed so the Manchester City manager is better placed than most to offer Avram Grant, the underfire Chelsea first-team coach, some pearls of wisdom.

“I have practice of that [the personal criticism],” Eriksson said. “I hope he [Grant] is stronger than that because who could care less? I think he’s doing a great job. It’s never easy to be a manager fighting for two titles. It’s always dangerous to criticise managers. Let’s wait until the season has finished [before we make any judgments].”

Chelsea have lost only twice in 27 matches under Grant in the Barclays Premier League, away to Manchester United in the Israeli’s first game in charge and away to Arsenal, all the while wrestling with a lengthy injury and absence list. A 2-0 victory over City on Saturday maintained the pressure on United in the title race, but while Arsène Wenger can do no wrong despite a run of two wins in 11 matches in all competitions during which Arsenal have been dumped out of the FA Cup, surrendered a commanding lead in the league to all but drift out of contention and teeter on the brink of elimination from the Champions League, Grant remains the subject of fierce criticism.

“What answer can I give?” Grant said. “You always believe in yourself. You need to do your own job and I don’t want to look back because it’s a fact that we lost a lot of points at the beginning and needed to chase after other teams.”

Chelsea were given a helping hand on Saturday when Richard Dunne turned Nicolas Anelka’s cross into his own net after six minutes. City rallied and spurned at least four good chances to draw level before Chelsea put the game to bed within eight minutes of the restart when Salomon Kalou exchanged a couple of neat one-twos with Michael Essien and rounded Joe Hart to score.

Eriksson’s misery was compounded after Nedum Onuoha, the defender, was ruled out for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder and possible fractured wrist.

City’s hope of a route into Europe would appear to be through the Inter-toto Cup or the Uefa Fair Play League, but a top-ten finish would be an achievement, given that Eriksson has fashioned a team out of a group of strangers in such a short space of time.

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): J Hart 8 – V Corluka 6, R Dunne 5, N Onuoha 7 (sub: Sun Jihai, 59min 5), M Ball 5 – M Johnson 7, G Fernandes 6 – Elano 5 (sub: D Vassell, 65 5), S Ireland 7 (sub: F Caiçedo, 75), M Petrov 7 – Benjani Mwaruwari 5. Substitutes not used: A Isaksson, D Hamann. Booked: Fernandes. Next: Sunderland (a).

Chelsea (4-3-3): C Cudicini 7 – J Belletti 6 (sub: P Ferreira, 86), Alex 5, J Terry 7, A Cole 7 – M Essien 8, J O Mikel 6, F Lampard 6 – S Wright-Phillips 4 (sub: J Cole, 52 6), N Anelka 7, S Kalou 6. Substitutes not used: Hilário, A Shevchenko, M Ballack. Next: Wigan Athletic (h).