Man City 1 - 1 Chelsea - Shafted Again

There is only one place to begin and that is with the referee, he was card happy, inconsistent and took every opportunity that he could to slow us down.

Mike Dean should definitely be relieved from Premier League duty in the coming weeks, he was absolutely shocking. He blew his whistle nearly every time we made a tackle, booked players for their first foul, refused to give us a penalty twice and ultimately sent Zabaleta off for a second bookable offence when he should not have been shown the first yellow, not to mention that he let Costa get away with putting his hands around Zabbas throat.

We were very very good today and bossed Chelsea in every area of the pitch, there is no way they would have scored against us had Zabbo not been sent off, they caught us on the break a few minutes after the dismissal when we were still reeling from the refs decision, as soon as we composed ourselves we started controlling the game again and super Frank Lampard grabbed the goal that secured a point, although we clearly deserved three.

The referee is the main talking point for now and rightly so, but there were so many positives to come out of today's game.
I will start with the team, nearly the whole team were committed to the cause and did not stop fighting, Yaya was the weakest link again but I am not going to say he played badly but he certainly played within himself and could have offered more, but as a whole the lads were immense.
Next some praise for the manager, in my pre match I said I wanted to see us go all out and attack Chelsea, Manuel set us up to do just that and it worked perfectly, he made a wise move by starting Milner knowing that his work ethic would be well utilised against a Chelsea team whose main objective was to make sure that they didn't concede and then of course he made the decision to bring Lampard on, need I say more.
I will finish off with the debut of Mangala, what a great performance from the Frenchman who rightly took the man of the match award at the Etihad. Imagine getting thrown into the side for the first time to face such tough opposition, it could be daunting for some players but that clearly wasn't the case for Mangala, he was absolutely immense and had Costa and co in his pocket all game, he was strong, quick, powerful, he reads the game well and always came out on top when it came to a tackle, if this was just a regular performance from him then I will declare now that we have the best centre back pairing in the world.

We didn't get the result we deserved today but I don't think that we need to dwell on it, it was our best performance this season by a mile and I think we should just look forward to continuing on that path, more so than ever I still maintain that we are by a distance the best team in the league, as long as we don't drop any silly points then I am sure that we will catch up and overtake the current leaders.

Man City vs Chelsea - Preview

            Manchester City vs Chelsea
 Sunday 21st September, Etihad Stadium
                        Kick Off 16:00
                   Referee: Mike Dean

Following tough games against Arsenal and Bayern we finally get an easy run out against Chelsea, in all seriousness this is potentially a vital game for us even though it is still early in the season.

Chelsea come to us tomorrow having won all of their league games this season, they have a good manager, a good team and they are scoring goals, it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that they will cause us some serious problems.

I expect Mourinho to try and conduct one of his tactical master plans against us tomorrow, we have seen him do it a few times in big games since he has returned to Stamford Bridge, he clearly orders possession and patience as well as solid defending and it works very well because he knows that his team can still score goals at the same time.

This is an important game for us, if we don't win the game then we could end up eight points behind Chelsea after just five games and it would take a brave person to suggest that Chelsea would relinquish such a lead even though it is very early into the season, I certainly wouldn't expect City to.

I would like to see Pellegrini send out a team that is all about attacking because Chelsea have been conceding goals, they haven't played any of the big boys yet and two of the teams they have faced have just been promoted, it certainly points towards defensive frailties.

I am feeling unsure again when it comes to predicting a result, not because I am worried about the prospect of facing Chelsea, more because I don't know which City will turn up.
I felt we played better against Arsenal and did well against Bayern but it is still clear that all of our cogs are not turning, if they do start to click into gear then I would back us to beat not only Chelsea but anyone.

Man City Team News
Stevan Jovetic continues to recover from a hamstring injury and Fernando is also set to miss out again as he is still suffering with a groin injury, Dzeko was said to be suffering from a back injury but is expected to be in the squad.

Chelsea Team News
Diego Costa will start despite carrying a hamstring injury, Chelsea are thought to have no other injury worries.

Possible Man City Line Up

Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Navas, Toure, Fernandinho, Silva, Aguero, Dzeko.

Possible Chelsea Line Up
Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta, Fabregas, Matic, Schurrle, Oscar, Hazard, Costa.

My Prediction
Man City 3 - 1 Chelsea.

Worth A Bet
Fernandinho scores the first goal in a 3-1 Man City win @ 190/1.