Mancini is Boas Constrictor
Monday Roberto Mancini and Manchester City travel back to London to play the other multi millionaires Chelsea FC. Formed in 1905, a good twenty five years after the blues, the first League meeting between these two was almost exactly one hundred and four years ago to the day. December 7th 1907 was held at Stamford Bridge, just like Mondays game, and ended in a 2-2 draw. With Chelsea on the high of Champions League qualification and Manchester City looking to retake the reigns of the Premiership title race it may very well be that kind of scoreline once again. That day our goals were scored by Buchanan and Jones and we finished that season third in the top flight and Chelsea secured 13th place.
In June 2003 then Chairman Ken Bates sold the club to Roman Abramovich and that is when their trophy haul (eventually) began. Before that their record was pretty much the same as that of our beloved Manchester City with just one League title (we have two), three FA Cups (we HAD four), Two League cups (ditto) and they had won the Euro Cup Winners Cup twice (we had just the one!) so as you can see pre 2003 we were similar, post 2010 and once more we are similar.
Over our history of League meetings together we have met 132 times with Manchester City winning only 42 of the games, losing 54 and drawing the rest. When Carlos Tevez scored the winner in our home game last season it was the 100th League goal that City had scored against Chelsea, whereas you only have to go back to the previous season to see when Chelsea notched their one hundredth against us.
Despite Chelsea having the slight edge with the overall statistics you only have to go back to February 2010 when we last beat them on their own ground. That season we did the double, beating them 2-1 in the home fixture. That said, the last meeting we had away to Chelsea was earlier this year, on 20th March. That was a 2-0 defeat and came only three days after we had been dumped out of the European competition, that despite winning our European game! Sound familiar?
This time around it will be different. City are out f the Champions League but to be fair that had been on the cards and easier to accept than the Kiev result. Take also into account that Manchester City have added Aguero and Nasri to their attacking ranks and have been free scoring in the League all season. Contrast that with Chelsea, who although now find themselves fifth and a cool ten points behind their opposition, have had positive results recently. That includes a 3-0 win against Valencia and the same result in the League against Newcastle. That said the previous ten matches in all competitions only yielded four wins, including being dumped out of the Carling Cup. Of those four wins, only two came from a game at Stamford Bridge.
Hope is high for the Mancunians that Chelsea, under the young Andre Villas-Boas, can get a result and reinstate the five point difference between them and rivals Manchester United at the top of the table.
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