By 40 Years A Blue
December 28 2005

Chelsea return to Eastlands tonight, the home of Man City and the scene of their only defeat in the Premiership winning season.

 A 11th minute penalty by Anelka after he was brought down by Paulo Ferreira stopped Chelsea from acheiving an unbeaten season. In the game at Stamford Bridge later in the season City foiled Chelsea again by grinding out a 0-0 draw and David James produced a second superb performance.

Here's hoping 'Calamity' James has a bad night tonight.

Although Chelsea managed to get maximum points on Boxing Day, they are going to have to play extremely well to get a result and keep the gap between us and Man Utd to at least nine points. 'Psycho' Pearce has got City moving and has introduced his own personality on the team.

With City losing at Wigan on Boxing Day, Chelsea have to be aware that City will come out tonight all guns blazing and with a capacity crowd in the City of Manchester Stadium Chelsea could be in for a tough night.

Pearce, however remains cautious. He said, "Over the past calendar year, they have shown no inclination of slowing down and losing matches. Liverpool or Manchester United might have to go unbeaten from now until the end of the season just to have a chance. We have had two very tight games against them. We beat them at home last season with a penalty, then we drew 0-0 at Stamford Bridge (in February) when our 'keeper was outstanding in a game that could have swung either way.

"We have done reasonably well against them in the last year, but they have both been very tough matches. We know they are a fantastic side. We will have our hands full trying to stop them, so we will have to play to the best of our ability and keep our fingers crossed."

Expect Andy Cole and Richard Dunne to be recalled into the starting line-up.

Chelsea however are still without Michael Essien who has a heel injury. Also out is Glenn Johnson but Damien Duff has recovered from injury and should make the bench along with Shaun Wright-Phillips who returns to Eastlands for the first time since his Summer move.

Boxing Day's team prediction yielded eight from eleven so for tonight I am going for:

Cech, Ferreira, Terry, Carvalho, Gallas, Makelele, Cole, Gudjohnsen, Drogba, Lampard, Robben.

The City of Manchester Stadium is one on my list that I have never been inside, although I have walked round it whilst on a business trip. The nearest I have got to Maine Road was way back in the eighties, during Chelsea's successful promotion year back into the old first division.

When I say the nearest, me and my mates set off really early we got about 30 miles from home and the car decided to break down. So by the time we got rescued, got the car sorted out it was way too late to get to Manchester. So instead we all went down the pub and then went to watch Welling United and Stafford Rangers. Can't remember the score but I can remember a very young Stan Collymore playing for Stafford - He was rubbish.

Look what happened to him!

By the way Chelsea won at City 3-2 with Tony Dorigo racing through for about eighty yards to score Chelsea's third. Remember those Red and White hoop shirts.

40 YEARS A BLUE!

There will be live updates on the message board from 7pm tonight.