Preview: City v Chelsea

Carlo Ancelotti's brilliant Chelsea side come to Eastlands this afternoon having won five straight league games without conceding a goal since a defeat at Villa Park in mid-October. Included in that run have been wins over United and Arsenal, the latter being particularly impressive. Our record against them is pretty terrible, a 1-0 win five seasons ago the only time we've taken three points from the fixture home or away in over fifteen years.

After such a shift on Wednesday night i expect Craig Bellamy may not start, and word is Stevie Ireland also has a knee injury. Shaun Wright-Phillips, also excellent against Arsenal, limped off with a sore ankle and faces a late fitness test. Martin Petrov is still missing, and Vladimir Weiss has tonsillitis. Nigel de Jong should return to anchor the midfield having been left out on Wednesday due to him being on four bookings.

For Chelsea, Saloman Kalou and Ashley Cole have thigh strains, with the latter thought to be more likely to play. Centre-half Alex is suffering from a hip injury and Jose Bosingwa is out until after the New Year after surgery on a troublesome left knee. The likes of Cech, Terry, Essien & Anelka were all rested for the midweek League Cup humbling at Blackburn.

There's little doubting that Chelsea are the best side in the country and will quite likely go on to win the title. From front to back they're fearsome opponents and will be fancied by most to beat us this afternoon. Despite being pretty much the perfect team, however; defenders who love to defend, a midfield capable of dominating, and strikers as deadly as they come, there are chinks in their armour, and we'll have to exploit them to gain any sort of result.

Firstly, they're as culpable to conceding from set-pieces as anybody, the stats back that up; 75% of the goals they've let in have come from them, and i'm sure it's something Mark Hughes will be hoping we can take advantage of. Despite us still not being as dangerous as we'd like there has definitely been some improvement in that department, with nine goals so far this season coming as a result of corners or offensive free-kicks.

Whoever takes those today, most likely SWP or Gareth Barry, we have to make the most of the height and presence of the likes of Lescott, Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor. Though Chelsea are a bigger and stronger side than us, aerial bombardment is perhaps the best method of pressuring them, and goalkeeper Cech isn't always completely confident when having to deal with crosses or people in his six-yard box.

Secondly, we must try and press them as high up the pitch as possible, not least to suppress the attacking threat of full-backs Ivanovic and more so Cole. As we've seen in recent weeks the England man is as big an asset in attack as he is in defence, and if we sit back and invite them on to us we're asking for trouble. Whoever plays in the wide positions must stay as far forward as possible in order to keep their markers occupied.

Thirdly, though we could be here all day if we were to discuss their attacking threats, we'll almost certainly need one of the central midfielders, probably Nigel de Jong, to do an effective man-marking job on Frank Lampard. If we do all these things, and more, we've got some chance, but the form Chelsea are in i'm sure most of us would be quite happy with a point, sick as we are of draws.

Of course, with City you always feel it likely that a great performance will be followed up with one completely bereft of anything positive. We can only hope that the lads getting through to our first semi-final in so many years and beating Arsenal handsomely as they did doesn't result in us taking our eye off the ultimate goal, a significantly-improved Premier League finish.

There should be no problem so far as motivation goes but fatigue could play a part. That combined with Chelsea wanting to make a statement of intent after the midweek result means i'm perhaps not as positive about our chances as i may have been. Games don't get much bigger, though, and to be fair we've impressed in fixtures against the challengers so far. Today might take everything going our way, or them being below par, maybe both, but if Wigan can do it...

Probable teams:
City: Given, Richards, Bridge, Toure, Lescott, de Jong, Wright-Phillips, Barry, Tevez, Adebayor, Robinho

Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, A.Cole, Carvalho, Terry, Essien, Ballack, Lampard, Anelka, Drogba, Malouda

Prediction: City 0 Chelsea 2