We desperately need these 3 points if we wish to make a meaningful challenge for the title (My specialist subject is stating the bleeding obvious) and I wonder “which” City will turn up at Eastlands tomorrow?

Eriksson’s men are 8 points off the remaining UEFA spot with 6 matches left – I’ve a feeling that the disappearance of that refreshing spark of motivation about them earlier in the season is down to this. 

Their players almost certainly feel that they won’t achieve anything more tangible this season (depending on the Fair Play league which could give them a route into Europe via the Intertoto Cup) and are more than sitting comfortably in the league.

Still, maybe the fact that they are facing us might be motivation enough.  Professional football players like to turn it on against the clubs higher up in the league and some of Eriksson’s men are very capable of putting on a show and going all out for the win.

In contrast, some of the City faithful may have mixed feelings about the desired result due to their deep hatred of who were the young upstarts in Manchester many years ago – Manchester United. 

It’s fair to say that in more recent times, United´s achievements have eclipsed those of their neighbours and this situation of resentment is in some ways mirrored in north London by the rivalry between Arsenal and Spurs. 

Suffice to say, the idea of Man Utd winning the league for City fans is one of extreme mental torture – in some ways, the hatred is at such a level that the idea of losing 3 points to a team that may be able to prevent an entire summer of taunting from their greatest rivals isn’t so disagreeable.

This level of hatred almost reminds me of a River Plate fan during a interview about his views on his clubs greatest rivals, Boca Juniors when he said that when he eventually lay on his death bed, he would convert to a Boca fan, so that a fan of Boca and not River would die!

Anyway, me waffling away as usual…Onto the match:

When I think of City there are three games that stick out in my mind in recent history; the first was up at Main Road when we packed out the Kippax helping towards a 40,000 attendance to watch a battle for top spot in the old 2^nd Division.  We won 3-2 and I’ll never forget Tony Dorigo breaking free from the half-way line and scoring our third. 

Next up was the Full Members Cup final at Wembley with an incredible 5-4 scoreline and lastly, Mourinho´s first loss in charge of Chelsea by an Anelka penalty (never a pen by the way!). 

We have a very good record against City having won five PL games against  them without conceding a single goal whilst City have only scored one goal in 11 against us and we are the only PL club not have lost in 2008.  There a lot more stats but I don’t have enough enthusiasm to go through them all right now – such is the tension in our league campaign that all I want are the 3 points and I don’t care even if we win by an own goal of Dunne’s bum! 

Elano is one to watch out for but City have midfielders Petrov and Johnson 50/50 for this game after recovering from flu and a groin strain respectively.   

The generally impressive Micah Richards is definitely out as is Ball - both have knee injuries. 

For our part, Cech may be back between the sticks and let’s see if Lampard has properly recovered from that nasty virus he contracted just before the England game. 

I’d love to see us use both Anelka and Drogba in a 4-4-2 (not sticking Anelka out wide on the wing where he looks like a lost puppy) BUT that isn’t going to happen. So Grant will persist in not using our resources properly and probably go 4-3-3 with the following: 

Cech, Ferreira, Terry, Carvalho, A Cole, Ballack, Mikel, Lampard, J Cole, Drogba, Kalou. 

Manchester City (from): Hart, Corluka, Onuoha, Dunne, Garrido, Jihai, Ireland, Fernandes, Hamann, Petrov, Johnson, Castillo, Elano, Benjani, Vassell, Caicedo, Geovanni, Sturridge, Isaksson.  

Chelsea (from): Cech, Cudicini, Hilario, Belletti, Ferreira, Ben-Haim, Carvalho, Terry, Alex, A Cole, Bridge, Sidwell, Essien, Lampard, Ballack, Makelele, Shevchenko, Drogba, Kalou, Wright-Phillips, Pizarro, Anelka, Mikel, J Cole, Malouda.  

Ref: Chris Foy (St Helens, Merseyside) 

Our league run-in afterwards is:-

Wigan (h)
Everton (a) (3 days later!!!!!)
Manchester United (h)
Newcastle (a)
Bolton (h)

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