ManCity to face revitalised Chelsea

When Chelsea met Manchester City in only the fourth game of the season, the match was played against a backdrop of speculation surrounding City’s prospects of upsetting the established order and breaking into the top four.

Then, City had just pulled off the audacious coup of snatching Real Madrid’s Robinho from under Chelsea’s noses, confirming that the Eastlands outfit had supplanted their opponents as the Premier League’s big-spenders following the takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group.

However, the subsequent 3-1 drubbing inflicted by Chelsea only confirmed the yawning chasm between City and a side harbouring hopes of qualifying for the Champions League.

Nothing has happened to the two clubs in the intervening six months to suggest that the gap has been narrowed ahead of their meeting this weekend at Stamford Bridge.

Guus Hiddink’s restoration job in West London has gathered pace and the Dutch manager goes into this game having won five and drawn one of his six in charge.

That one blemish on his record came in Turin this week when Chelsea were held 2-2 by Juventus in the first knockout round of the Champions League.

Yet it proved to be just enough to ensure Chelsea joined Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal in the quarter-finals, having won the first leg 1-0 at home.

A few days earlier victory at Championship club Coventry City set up an FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal or Hull City while a succession of single-goal league victories have maintained Hiddink’s side’s interest in the Premier League title race.

The Dutchman has been adamant from day one that Chelsea’s only hope of catching Manchester United has been to win all their remaining league games and hope that the runaway leaders slip up.

Chelsea have kept their part of the bargain but, unfortunately for Hiddink and his players, Sir Alex Ferguson’s reigning champions have refused to play ball, and the Blues manager admitted Liverpool’s visit to face United at Old Trafford twenty-four hours before his own side’s meeting with City was their final hope of a slip-up.

“If Liverpool can do some harm then great because it will make for a more exciting end to the season,” said Hiddink. “But United look very determined.

“When I said we could win the league we were on schedule at that time but United have not made any mistakes since and neither have we but until it is impossible then we will fight.”

Facing Chelsea will be a City side that quickly discovered the addition of a high-profile signing like Robinho doesn’t bring immediate success, although the recruitment of former Blues fringe players Shaun Wright-Phillips and Wayne Bridge has at least added consistency to Mark Hughes’ side.

Hughes has always publically maintained he is happy to have Robinho on board but privately he is believed to have grown frustrated at the play-maker’s failure to perform away from home.

Hughes’ main priority this summer – if he survives his new owners’ end of season review – is to strengthen the spine of the team with Chelsea skipper John Terry figuring high on his wish-list following a failed approach for the England defender at the turn of the year.

City received a further knock-back from Valancia’s David Villa this week, but Hughes’ primary concern rests with the current campaign and his side’s attempt to finish in the top seven whilst ending the club’s 33-year wait for a trophy in the UEFA Cup.

With Craig Bellamy, Nigel De Jongh and Vincent Kompany all missing at Stamford Bridge, City could well receive another painful lesson in the difference between money and footballing wealth.