MAN CITY 2 CHELSEA 1

Adebayor og 8

Adebayor 37, Tevez 56

Man City: Given, Richards (Onuoha 69), Toure, Lescott, Bridge (Kompany 74), De Jong, Barry, W-Ph’lips, Tevez, Robinho (Zabaleta 90), Adebayor.
Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Carvalho (Belletti 64), Terry (Malouda 88), A Cole, Essien, Ballack (Mikel 64), Lampard, Deco, Drogba, Anelka.

Ref: H Webb

Attendance 47,348

In the past City have been too fragile psychologically or guilty of not having players up for the physical battle against the Londoners brute strength.

In Drogba and Anelka up front backed up by Lampard, Essien and Ballack, you have a midfield powerhouse that is the most dominating midfield in the world.

In midweek City showed signs that they had that physical brute force to compete for the first time by crunching the life out of Arsenals talented young gunners.

Yet the scintillating performance today proved to millions watching that this City side now has the power to go with the skill and fancy footwork to trouble any defence in the world.

With the players such as Lescott, De Jong, Richards, Barry and Kompany City are no longer the bullied, but the bullies of the playground.

City began the game showing the same intensity as against Arsenal and looked the better side with more shots on target and corners, but fell behind to an own goal form Emmanuel Adebayor.

No one would think that the best team in Europe at the moment would have then gone on to take control of the game, but nothing could be further from the truth as City showed another part of their new character.

The new resilience that has seen City only beaten once all season was again evident as the Sky Blues immediately pressured the Chelsea midfield, playing some exhilarating stuff stretching the Chelsea fullbacks and interchanging passes at will.

City finally broke the deadlock after a centre was floated into the Chelsea area and after the ball had found its way to Adebayor the big front man lashed it into the net.

Key a predictable mass protest from Chelsea, but it was to be in vain as the goal would stand and Webb waved the players back to the centre circle.

You know you have Chelsea on the back foot, when Ashley Cole is acting like a petulant school boy as if the opposition should not have the right to be on top.

The second half continued began with the same intensity as the first with both sides looking to impose their dominance on the game.

It was City spurred on by their magnificent support that began to look like the superior team again.

After a period of intense pressure, City finally found the breakthrough when a free kick was fired in by the electric Carlos Tevez past a Peter Cech that Paul Merson had previously lorded as the best in the business last week- Nice one Toady!

You need a nut-cracker to break a hard nut as Arsenal found out to their cost last weekend and City certainly were cracking bones with Lescott and Bridge giving Drogba a hard time and De Jong showing Essien there is more than one master of destruction in this league.

City, after recent collapses, understandably had a period of uncertainty when Chelsea created a few chances.

Drogba went close on a couple of occasions and Chelsea looked like they would get an undeserved goal.

Both Wayne Bridge and Micah Richards had become casualties in this all out war and had to be replaced by Nedum Onuoha and Vincent Kompany respectively.

Gareth Barry was shifted to left back and although already exhausted and on a yellow, proved his value to the team with a composed display.

Onouha on the other hand, made the mistake of letting Drogba get goal side and a rash challenge brought the Ivory Coast star for a definite penalty.

What happened next transformed this game into a Premier League classic with all forty-eight thousand fans in the stadium, millions worldwide watching and all of the Premier League teams held their breath as Frank Lampard faced off with Shay Given.

The resulting penalty save was met with shock and exultation from no doubt everybody not wearing Chelsea Blue as Given denied Lampard’s nervous penalty making every England fan sit nervously on their chair at a similar prospect next summer in South Africa.

It seemed as though every Chelsea player had been booked, including the subs by the time John Terry was forced to leave the field but there were to be no defensive lapses this week however, as City closed out the game after six minutes of stoppage time.

Tevez and Richards were fantastic, but none of it would have been possible without winning the infantry battle against Lampard, Ballack and Essien, and Nigel De Jong’s destructive presence in midfield puts him up there with the very best defensive midfielders in the world.

Watching Paul Merson’s latest attack on Manchester City sent me back almost a decade in time to the days of Harry Enfield and his grotesque character ‘Loads a Money’.

How this ultra biased Gunner is still employed by Sky Sports is just a mystery to millions of watching fans across the globe.

It certainly isn’t for his eloquence of speech as the washed up Ex- England star stumbles through yet another incomprehensible utterance as though he’s just come back from lunch at the local pub.

The only conclusion I can think for the Toad of Powder Hall still being in a prime time television job is that he amuses host Jeff Spelling and the other pundits so much that they just can’t bear to be without him.

In fact, the Ex-England star looks so much like the Toad of Toad Hall in a monkey suit that maybe thousands of Children worldwide are to blame for a rise in viewing figures as they believe his segment to be a continuation of children’s programming.

In Toad’s latest instalment he analyses Man City’s performance against Hull City. In a game that City dominated but couldn’t kill off, Hull were awarded a penalty to level the score and steal a point.

When asked about the Sky Blues, Merson labelled the Blues as a coach of Hollywood superstars who had failed at top four clubs and were now cracking under the pressure of failing to deliver!

Now I don’t know about you Paul, but wasn’t Carlos Tevez a big hit and winner at Man United? Wasn’t Kolo Toure the last remaining member of ‘The Invincibles’ arguably the best Arsenal team of the last 30 years?

The next pearl of wisdom that made it’s way out of this sorry excuse for a man’s mouth was the bitterest attack on the Blues to date.

“I look at Man City’s team and not one of them could get into a top four side…”

So astounded were Matt Le Tissier and the other pundits at what was coming out of the Buffoon’s mouth, they were rendered speechless.

The silence was eventually broken by the tactful Stelling, sounding like a father to his teenage son, suggesting that Merson was exaggerating again and that of course Shay Given was good enough.

Merson’s response was typical of a man who has long since made brain-to-tongue communication redundant in his world.

“He wouldn’t get in ahead of Cech at Chelsea, but I’d ‘av ‘im at Arsenal…”

Are Arsenal not a top four side then Paul? The analytical genius obviously has a problem with City and one wonders if it is over more than just the Adebayor issue.

With a full three and a half minutes to talk, there is no shortage of material to illustrate how biased this man is and you just have to see it to believe it for yourself.

Manchester City will not fight any ban that is given to their star striker, Emanuel Adebayor. The Football Association have already dished out a three match ban for the players stamp on Arsenal’s, Robin Van Persie, and an investigation into Adebayor’s celebration in front of Arsenal fans is ongoing.

The former Gooner has been heavily criticised ever since City’s victory last weekend and although Mark Hughes is inciting hatred for his defence of the player, the club have said they will not challenge the FA decision.

A City statement read: “The player strongly maintains that he did not intend to act in a violent manner. He apologised on the day to Robin van Persie personally and to the wider public for the outcome of the challenge.”

It does appear that City are trying to move on from the incident which has reflected very badly on the club itself. With crucial matches coming up, including one against high flying Tottenham and current champions Manchester United, the emphasis needs to be on the pitch.

The point is that there would be no value at all in putting together an appeal package. This may seen by the FA as merely problematic and a delaying tactic by City which could eventually get the ban increased to four or five matches. It would not be the first time that the FA would have done this and the three match ban is consideed sufficient enough by the Manchester club.

In a bizarre twist it seems that Adebayor has drawn some defence from Spurs manager, Harry Redknapp. He said: “I’ve got no time for people kicking anybody or being violent on the football pitch and he was wrong to run the length of the field, but it’s very difficult when you’re getting abuse throughout the game like he was.”

“It’s not celebrating a goal that cause riots, it’s idiots who want to start riots. Adebayor went over the top but, at the same time, he was getting a lot of abuse from the fans for the whole afternoon.”

“What did he do really? Run back and go like that, saying he scored. I’m not saying it’s right but if you can’t go near the away fans when you score because you’ll cause a riot. If I had been standing there and we had been giving him grief all game and he did that, I would probably say, ‘Fair play’.”