Manchester City v Blackburn Rovers – as it happened

Evening all . Blackpool manager Ian Holloway summed it up fairly succinctly over the weekend: "My advice to Jack Frost? Stop it mate." And stop it he has, at least enough to allow City and Blackburn to go mano-a-mano this evening. The home side haven't conceded since the appointment of natty-scarf wearing Roberto Mancini and his strangely stylish mullet. Sam Allardyce, who may have got a natty scarf for Christmas from a well-meaning relative, looked delighted, said thanks and then popped it in a difficult to reach drawer never to be worn, hasn't guided his side to a Premier League win since beating Bolton on 22 November - an eight-game winless streak. So a formality then? Not quite. Rovers have got a pretty decent recent record away at City, and the hosts have a few problems at the back. The teams are in ... Man City: Given, Zabaleta, Richards, Kompany, Garrido, Petrov, De Jong, Barry, Bellamy, Tevez, Mwaruwari. Subs: Taylor, Wright-Phillips, Robinho, Santa Cruz, Sylvinho, Boyata, Ibrahim. Blackburn: Robinson, Jacobsen, Samba, Nelsen, Givet, Emerton, Andrews, Nzonzi, Pedersen, Dunn, Di Santo. Subs: Brown, McCarthy, Olsson, Kalinic, Hoilett, Salgado, Chimbonda. Referee: Chris Foy (Merseyside) So City look set to field a central defensive pairing of Micah Richards and Vincent Kompany, while Benjani Mwaruwari makes his first league start for 13 months. Blackburn go with one up front. Sam Allardyce has already told ESPN that he'd take a point now. This natty scarf business is catching. Shay Given is currently being interviewed on the box while wearing one of the aforementioned garments. I'm no sartorial expert (no, really) but I reckon scarves - like wellies, cagoules and fingerless gloves (unless you're Steptoe) - are outdoor wear. ESPN have grabbed Mancini , who up close looks a little like Gene Wilder in the original film of Willy Wonka. "I think it will be a good game for Benjani," he says, offering the interviewer a large bar of his Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. "Blackburn are a good team." Click, clack, click, clack ... The players are emerging from the tunnel. I've just jumped at an advert. An advert for a savings firm. Is that normal? A minute's silence in honour of those killed with Togo this weekend ... ... impeccably observed by those at Eastlands. Nice one. Peep! Benjani and Tevez get things underway. 27 sec: Tevez scuttles forward and wins a corner ... 1 min: ... claimed by Robinson. It's very subdued up at the City of Manchester Stadium, not quite up there with the dozen or so who turned out for Malawi v Algeria this afternoon, but a lowly crowd nevertheless. Blackburn have apparently brought just 450. 3 min: Contrary to my teams posted earlier, Steven Reid is on the bench for Blackburn, Benni McCarthy having suffered a back spasm in the warm up. Bellamy overhits a shocking pass toward Tevez. It's been a scrappy old start. 5 min: Bellamy wrongly given offside as Blackburn get caught out, though Tevez's sidefoot is comfortably saved by Robinson anyway. 6 min: Samba needlessly concedes a corner with a wayward back-header ... GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Blackburn (Tevez 7) ... Well, we had an object lesson in comedy goalkeeping in Luanda this afternoon, and Paul Robinson has just made his own contribution to today's calvalcade of clownish keeping. Blackburn's stopper flapped hopelessly at Petrov's corner, patting the ball down to Benjani, and his stab at goal is turned in by Tevez. 10 min: Pedersen sends a long throw into the City box, but Bellamy brings it clear. Rovers are looking a little shambolic just now. 12 min: Morten Gamst Pedersen, a player whose stock has fallen alarmingly in the last season or so, wins a free-kick on halfway but again Rovers can't conjure anything with it. 15 min: To be honest, these "Isn't Mancini well turned out?"-type asides from TV commentators are already getting tiresome. Isn't it a sad indictment of how stultified the Premier League can be that a manager wearing a nice suit, jaunty accessories and an attractive Italian face gets turned into an instant cliche. And, yes, I know I'm bang-to-rights guilty of it. But I'm going to stop it. Now. Nothing much has happened on the pitch, by the way. Hence the mini-rant. 17 min: Tevez and Bellamy with a lovely little bit of interplay down the left, almost open Rovers up, but Benjani can't quite turn into space in the area. At the other end Gael Givet (natty curly French mop of hair etc ...) volleys an effort just wide. 19 min: Pass, pass, pass from City. "What's with this hair obsession?" wonders Carl Lancombe. It's called jealously, Carl. Pure, raging, unadulterated jealously. Why do you think I've got this ridiculous beard? 21 min: Zabaleta's pass puts Tevez away, he feeds Petrov but the Bulgarian's cross fails to find a City shirt. And Nzonzi screams a shot over at the other end. It's been a poor game, though, thus far. 24 min: "Amen to your comments. Hearing predictable sound bites like 'Sartorial elegance', 'a snappy blue and white tie', 'a sharp suit'. It's as boring as all this ill-informed Berbatov bashing," reckons Rufus Speel, jimmying the lid of a oil tanker full of worms. 26 min: Tevez spanks a shot against a Rovers backside, but Blackburn have wrested a modicum of control here, though they're offering very little goal threat. Pedersen gets a sight of the sticks, but he skews his shot wide. 27 min: Petrov wangs a long-range free-kick into the stands. "Re. Pedersen's stock. With all due respect John, I am struggling to think of a Blackburn player who's stock has risen over that time period," writes Spencer Jones, who may or may not have been my estate agent a year or two ago. "When you look at the team they had a few years ago, even the ones who left (the now genius sale of David Bentley) point to the club suffering an unfortunate decline." I'd argue that Ryan Nelsen's reputation is still fairly strong, but other than that ... it is tough to think of anyone. 29 min: When I say 'my estate agent', by the way, I mean I once rented a flat that a Spencer Jones showed me round. I've not got a property empire or anything. Unless you count tents. I've got two of them. Anyway, this football business ... maybe I was spoiled with the Africa Cup of Nations this afternoon, but this one has barely raised the pulse. 32 min: Di Santo can't quite control a bobbling ball on the edge of the box, and the home fans are beginning to lose a little patience. 36 min: Rovers don't quite have the guile to get through City, while Benjani and Tevez have been a little isolated. The result has been a scrappy arm-wrestle of a tussle between the central midfielders, with no one yet able to emulate Jeff Goldblum in The Fly . GOAL! Manchester City 2-0 Blackburn (Richards 39) Blackburn's metaphorical radius has just popped bloodily through their forearm. Richards romps forward from the back, marauding past midfielders and then laying off to Benjani. His shot cannons back off the post and the defender is on hand to slap home the rebound. 42 min: Apologies if updates are a little slow - I'm having a few of the technical problems that blighted the cricket OBO a few days ago. I'm not making a big song and dance about it though. City have got this stitched up then, haven't they? Without really getting out of first gear as well. Blackburn will feel a little hard done by, but you can't see them scoring twice tonight. 44 min: "You'll be thrilled to know thea theme on the Radio Five commentary, with the ever original Alan Green swooning, is about how dashed good-looking Mancini is, and musing aloud about who was the more attractive, Mancini or Mourinho, adding they'd have to ask a woman to find out," writes the mysterious (or possibly just Brazilian) Kate. "Sure Alan, you're fooling no-one there, ditto for the rest of the nation's lovesick hacks. Did he get this in Italy do you think?" Peep! Half time. And Journey starts belting out from the stadium Tannoy. I wonder if any of those 450 Blackburn fans are wishing they'd stayed in to watch Corrie. Half time warming cuppa news. My colleague, and some time 4th XI cricket skipper, Rich 'Mr Squad Sheets' Flower has provided me with a steaming beaker of Tetley. Though in order to procure it he had to ask the man in the canteen how the hot water machine works . We're all technologically literate here at New Guardian Towers you know. Half time email dept. "Re. Blackburn players whose stock have risen," writes Mark Oliver. "I'd submit Keith Andrews in that category. He was considered by Wolves fans to be too rubbish and crab-like for them in the Championship and is now a Premiership and Republic of Ireland regular. Mind you, I understand Blackburn fans don't rate him at all - but he's still in the team ..." Andrews is a strange one - I have to say I never rated him at Wolves and was not at all surprised to see him drop down a division to MK Dons. Ince effectively brought him with him when he became manager at Ewood - which I took as a pretty bad sign of things to come - but he's certainly impressing someone up there. A double change for Blackburn: Kalinic and Hoilett for Di Santo and the aforementioned Andrews. Peep! Blackburn get the party started once more. 47 min: Garrido somehow wriggles through down the left, but Benjani can't control his cross. Bellamy also escapes seconds later, but he can't quite pick out Tevez. You get the sense that City could get a hatful if they can properly find their mojo. GOAL! Manchester City 3-0 Blackburn (Tevez 49) What a super goal. Benjani bashes Givet off the ball down the right, and though his pull-back doesn't find his preferred target, Tevez is on hand to sidefoot sumptuously past Robinson. This could really get ugly for Rovers. 50 min: Just in reference to Kate (44 min), I doubt Mancini gets this treatment from hacks in Italy, largely because Italian hacks are just as handsome as he is. I remember sitting behind a salvo of Rome journalists for a pre-seaosn friendly at West Ham. Every one of them was immaculately turned out, putting their pasty-faced, crumb-strewn British counterparts to shame. And because I can't speak Italian, their copy looked like poetry. It could have been tabloid trash, but I bet even "Phew! What a Scorcher!" probably looks beautiful in Italian. 52 min: The camera at Eastlands pans to a disheartening sight for Rovers' fans: Roque Santa Cruz, woolly-hatted and tracksuited, warming the City bench. 55 min: Blackburn loft a halfway-line free-kick into the box, Dunn dinks it back in, Kalinic back-headers well over the bar. Not pretty, or effective, but the best that Rovers have managed so far this half. 58 min: It should have been four! Zabaleta gets free down the right, picks out Tevez, but the little Argentine can only steer his header wide from little more than six yards out. 60 min: Zabaleta hacks his way into the Chris Foy's notebook after a poor challenge on Hoilett. 61 min: It should have been 3-1! Dunn curls in the free-kick, Given stays at home, and Nzonzi, leaping above Kompany, directs his header just wide of the post from close range. 63 min: "Imagine what the fawning over Mancini is doing to Phil Brown's ego," writes Mark Gilles. "You just know he considers himself top Premiership totty, and must be puzzled as to why people won't acknowledge it." Pedersen wins a free-kick, and it's from quite tasty range ... 64 min: ... but the Norwegian hammers it into the stands. 66 min: Dunn is lucky not to find himself in the book after hacking down Tevez, who slaps the Blackburn players hand of friendship away with the force of that bloke from Scrubs. And Dunn is immediately replaced by Olsson. 68 min: Blackburn string a few passes together, but Emerton's shot from a tight angle is comfortably saved by Given. Robinho is about to replace Bellamy. 69 min: Barry pings a pass out wide to Petrov, but his shots scuds into the side-netting. GOAL! Manchester City 3-1 Blackburn (Pedersen 71) A chink of light for Rovers perhaps? Given again is a little cuplable, his pass to Kompany isn't the easiest to control, although the Belgian could have done a better job than the one he managed. Instead his loose touch runs straight to Pedersen, who steps past a tackle before rolling back the years with a lovely curled finish. 73 min: 70 min: Given gets away with a handling error, blocking Emerton's shot after fumbling a cross at the Australian's feet. "One Blackburn player whose stock seems to have risen slightly since joining Rovers is Pascal Chimbonda," writes Adrian Cooper. "Sub-zero temperatures, a chill wind in the air and absolutely no mention of his perma-gloved hands. Okay, so he hasn't actually made it off the bench, which could just at a stretch be considered something of a backwards step as regards his career trajectory but at least he hasn't been written off as a foreign softy so far tonight." Imagine having perma-gloved hands. Great for taking things out of the oven. Not so good on the beach. 74 min: City are rocking just a touch, with Kompany forced to atone for his error with a scrambling block on Hoillet at the near post. Seconds later Pedersen almost gets on the end of Olsson's cross. This could be an interesting final quarter of an hour ... 76 min: "I'm trying in vain to visualise Petrov's shot scudding into the side netting," writes Dominic Wright. "Does that mean it actually missed the side netting by a long way, probably falling short?" Garrido concedes a needless corner ... 77 min: ... floated in ineffectually, and as City start to break Pedersen cynically brings down Robinho, taking a booking for the team. 80 min: GOA ... no, offside! Robinho, though he tucked the ball past Robinson, is a couple of yards off from Tevez's low centre. 82 min: Benjani off, Santa Cruz on. Robinho forces Robinson into an excellent save with a stinging 25-yard drive. It's an even better save on the replays - the former England stopper did very well to keep that out. 84 min: Hoillet floats a header wide. "Is Mark Gilles (63rd minute) from the South, by any chance?" wonders Scott W. "I would be intrigued to learn the geographical distribution of Phil Brown-haters - because, you know, the man is such a harmless clod that hating on him seems to have mutated into an acceptable avenue for bashing certain stereotypical images of Northerners. Leave him alone, I say!" 86 min: Santa Cruz, Tevez and Petrov are three-on-one with Nelsen and the big Paraguayan rather greedily hammers a shot in when a pass to either of his team-mates would have provided a tap-in. Instead they're ducking in the middle tier. 87 min: Petrov trudges off and Dedryk Boyata trots on, the only Dedryk I think I've ever heard of outside of the Simpsons . 89 min: Rovers win a couple of corners, but they're wasted like Meat Loaf's youth . GOAL! Manchester City 4-1 Blackburn (Tevez 90+1) A hat-trick for Tevez! Givet hits the self-destruct button with a horrible throw in that hands possession to City on the edge of their own box, Tevez shuffles some space, uses his marker to shield the ball from Robinson's sight, and with little backlift curls home his third of the night. 90+3 min: A nasty clash of heads between Givet and Nzonzi has led to a lengthy stoppage so we might play a few more than the original four added minutes. City won't mind. Tevez has been excellent tonight, but excellent in the way I remember him from the 2004 Olympics - not wasting too much energy chasing the ball in wide areas for once, but lethal in front of goal. Peep! Peep! Peeeeep! Chris Foy blows up and hands Tevez the match ball. Four wins out of four for Mancini and his lovely clothes/nice face etc and so forth ... That's it from me, folks. Thanks for all your emails. G'night.