Blackburn reax

Daniel Taylor, The Guardian

Tevez's hat-trick takes his total to 15 goals in 21 starts since his defection from Manchester United and the striker was oozing confidence on a night when Micah Richards scored the goal of his life. The only downside for Mancini came in the form of the first goal his side have conceded in the four games since he took over from Mark Hughes. Morten Gamst Pedersen's left-foot shot prompted a brief flurry from the visitors but the margin of victory did not flatter City and, even if the seven-point gap to Chelsea looks a considerable divide, there is the unmistakable sense of a side playing with renewed vigour and optimism.

Mark Ogden, Daily Telegraph

By taking his recent strike-rate to 11 goals in nine games as City coasted past Blackburn at Eastlands, Tévez not only proved his class as a goalscorer, he also lifted Roberto Mancini’s team into the top four.

Noisy neighbours or not, City are now beginning to make actions speak louder than words. Win their game in hand on United and Mancini’s team will close to within three points of the champions and it is Tévez’s goals that are providing the hot breath down Ferguson’s neck.

Oliver Kay, The Times

Yes, Blackburn were poor, but City were lively, maintaining a high tempo throughout the first half, in which Tévez and Benjani led the charge, Craig Bellamy and the rejuvenated Petrov repeatedly stretched the visiting team’s defence and Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry played with typical economy in midfield.

Ian Herbert, The Independent

The opposition last night was dreadful and it was little wonder Sam Allardyce took half an hour to emerge to talk, but Tevez's 11 goals in nine appearances add to the growing impression that he was right to demand more than that seat on the bench Sir Alex Ferguson allocated him. He is also morphing from his stereotype as an industrious little digger to a purveyor of fine goals, perhaps 25 of them a season. A lead player rather than just the support act. He has already equalled his entire final season tally for United.

Matt Lawton, Daily Mail

After coming here on the back of eight goals in eight games, Tevez added three more. The opener might have been a bit of a fluke but the second and, in particular, the third, were superb. Two fine finishes.

Mancini must have been delighted, and not just because they now find themselves in the company their owners are so keen for them to keep.

It is the consistency of the performances that must please their new Italian manager most.

Blackburn player ratings

Given One good save of note, quite far out of goal and amongst a sea of bodies. Not at fault for the goal, but regardless his distribution was not quite as precise as usual. 6

Zabaleta When more defenders are fit I would not be surprised if he dropped out of the side, with Richards moving across. He was poor this evening, as he has been for much of the season. He missed a few tackles, and gave away some silly free-kicks. There were a few moments of clever play going forward, but he no longer looks much more solid than Richards. 5

Richards Error-free defensively - when could we last say that? Centre back may not be his natural position but he did well today. Scored a very good goal: storming forward with the ball, in a manner reminiscent of Lúcio, before feeding Benjani and hitting home the Zimbabwean's rebounding shot. 8

Kompany Fearless and peerless at the back for almost the entire game: he is playing better than any MCFC centre-back has this season. Blotted his copybook when a heavy touch and a slip let in Morten Gamst Pedersen, who scored the first goal against us of the Mancini era. 7

Garrido Untroubled for most of the evening. One or two nice touches going forward but a quiet game. Left back is certainly up for grabs. 6

Petrov Flashes of good stuff, but never quite sustained. Spent most of the game on the right flank, meaning that he could not play in his old fashioned manner of running to the byline and cutting the ball back. Put in a few good balls but never hurted Blackburn as he can. 6

de Jong Does not mind coming up against physical teams and he gave as good as he got. Will be unfortunate if replaced by Vieira at Goodison Park. 7

Barry With two wingers and two strikers on the pitch his movements were necessarily restricted, but he was impressive in his control of the ball and retention of possession. Another who will be unlucky to lose his place to Vieira. 7

Bellamy Quiet. Beat Jacobsen for pace a few times but failed to do anything with the space that he created. Much less of a threat than he usually is. 5

Tévez Exceptional. He scored three - two of which were beauifully curled finishes from the edge of the box, and could have had four or five. Moreover, his all round play was excellent - dropping into space, holding the ball up, playing in team mates. When did we last have a striker of his ability in this sort of form? 9

Benjani Now I'm not his biggest fan. But he did quite well tonight. His touch was better than at Middlesbrough, so his hold up play was too. He also got three assists. Admittedly two of those were from mis-struck shots, but at least he's contributing. 6

Subs:

Robinho Some very nice touches - keeping the ball well and almost scoring from distance. 7

RSC Held the ball up well. 6

Boyata Too late n/a

City 4 - 1 Blackburn

• The fourth win out of four for Mancini and another good performance. For all but a very brief period we were as solid at the back as we have been for the rest of the Mancini era. Going forward we managed to score four and create more despite quiet afternoons from the wide players and having Benjani up front. Which is testimony really to the heroism of Carlos Tévez: scoring a hat-trick, unsettling defenders and creating chances for others. With eleven goals in his last eight starts it looks increasinly clear that if we achieve anything special this season - in the league or in either cup - it will be thanks to the talismanic qualities of Carlitos.

• It was a rather strange game. One of the biggest changes from Mark Hughes' management is his Mancini's willingness to put men behind the ball once we've gone ahead, even at home. This meant that we were happy to sit back and let Blackburn play, confident that they didn't have enough wit to break through our newly well-organised defence. This was fine until Vincent Kompany slipped and Morten Gamst Pedersen pulled one back. At which point, with us defending so deep, Blackburn threatened to seize momentum, typical City threatened to rear its head. The threat passed soon enough. But we are yet to face a real test, yet to play a good team. When we do, we might have a better sense of how serious contenders Roberto Mancini's Manchester City will be this season.

• Up until Pedersen's goal, this might have been our best defensive performance under Mancini. Vincent Kompany and Micah Richards were flawless, against admittedly very limited and predictable Blackburn attacks. It is certainly arguable that Kompany is currently in better form than anyone playing at centre-back has been for us so far this season. It is by no means sure that both, or even either, of Joleon Lescott and Kolo Touré will get back into the side. And if the latter fails to return, it will be fascinating to see if Patrick Vieira plays enough to become the new captain, or if Shay Given retains the armband.

• We were lucky to come up against opponents as poor as Blackburn. People say that Mancini has been lucky to play teams of the standard of Stoke City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Middlesbrough and now Blackburn Rovers. And it's true. But where Mancini has been really lucky has been to catch all four teams playing as badly as they have. Blackburn were error-prone in defence, lazy in midfield and witless up front. They threatened to come to life briefly in the second half, but did not live up to the promise. Goodison Park on Saturday will be a whole new order of things.
  

• As exciting as it is to be in the top four, it still matters less than our impending cup semi-final. I was hoping to learn more about what to expect from us that day. But I didn't. If anything Mancini rubbed out lessons previously taught, rather than show us more of his intentions. There were no defensive wide players, but Martin Petrov and Craig Bellamy. There was a big and small pairing up front, as was the style of Hughes. There was no obvious place for Patrick Vieira to come in. Much still remains unclear, and probably unknown even to him. But with four straight wins no one is complaining.
  

Blackburn preview

The fourth game of the Mancini era was meant to be the League Cup semi-final against United. But it wasn't. Which is fortunate: the learning process can continue with a fourth easy game, as Mancini continues to assess which team he can put out will be best suited to getting us to Wembley. I know that if we win tonight we go fourth, but with this semi-final coming up I barely care about our progress in the league.

That doesn't mean that a win isn't important. Failure to take three points against a very limited Blackburn Rovers side would be a set back to our momentum and confidence with the first leg against United only eight days away. But wins can be important in different ways, and there are more important things at stake tonight than just three points. Primarily, tonight should provide answers to a few questions that remain unanswered.

Do we need a target man up front? Will Roque Santa Cruz come back into the side, or will Mancini stick with the Molineux combination of Craig Bellamy and Carlos Tévez? Will the arrival of Patrick Vieira lead to a change to 4-3-3? This seems to be best way of including him with both Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry, but it doesn't seem like the best way of arranging the team in a home game against Blackburn. And what of Shaun Wright-Phillips? His injury has come at the worst possible time, interrupting his good spell of form and preventing him from being involved in Mancini's first three games. Mancini clearly rates both Bellamy and Martin Petrov, and while Hughes could fit all three players in his 4-2-4 system I imagine that his successor will be less willing to do so. I don't mean all these questions as criticisms of Mancini, in a 'he still doesn't know his best team' sense, but it is certainly true that much remains unknown - even to Mancini himself - about which players and which systems will be most deployed in the era.

We are fortunate that this learning process has taken place so far through an easy run of fixtures. Goodison Park on Saturday will provide a different intensity of challenge, but this evening should not. Blackburn have taken five points from a possible 33 on the road to date: winning in Bolton and drawing in Wigan and Hull. They lost 6-2 at the Emirates, 5-0 at Stamford Bridge, and 3-0 at Craven Cottage and Goodison Park. That said, we failed to beat Hull City or Burnley at CoMS under Mark Hughes, and neither of those sides have won a single away game thus far this season. So tonight will test our post-Hughes ruthlesness.

As I said above, we can't yet predict the team. But we can predict the result: I'm going for a comfortable, if not especially compelling, 2-0 win.