EPL: Manchester City vs. Blackburn

Mario Balotelli opens the scoring. (AP Images)

I really doubt that anyone watching this match, City fan, Rovers fan, or neutral, would have expected anything different than what we got from Etihad stadium today. In the end, the only surprise might be that City didn't win by more.

City kicked into gear right away, with Mario Balotelli blasting a shot on goal in the 2nd minute. Rovers 'keeper Paul Robinson reacted well to his left and managed to keep the ball out. It was the first of many saves he would have to make to keep the scoreline respectable.

Chances didn't exactly come regularly for City, but it wasn't because of the Blackburn defense at all. City provided a very patient attack, pushing and probing for the right way to open the Rovers defense. It was quite impressive. The next good chance fell to Adam Johnson in the 24th minute, but once again Robinson turned City away. In the 27th Balotelli also put a free kick on target, that was once again parried away by Robinson. Finally City and Super Mario broke through in the 30th minute. Balotelli took a cross from Kolarov at the near the post then whacked it by Robinson to make it 1-0.

City would turn up the pressure even more prior to the half. David Silva was the maestro of
the match all day, as usual, and he had a shot nicely saved in the 34th. Vincent Kompany had a shot turned away in the 37th. The rebound fell to Yaya Toure, but he couldn't do much except put it wide. City took the 1-0 lead into the half.

Blackburn must have felt alright about themselves coming out for the second. Despite only having 20 percent of the possession and giving up quite a few chances, they were only down 1-0. All that changed very early on though. In the 52nd minute Robinson totally fumbled a City corner and Sergio Aguero kicked the ball into the empty net to make it 2-0. Robinson had a good day up until then, but that was a real howler.

City wasn't done though, and even one of their subs got in amongst the goals. In the 81st minute Edin Dzeko took a beautiful cross, again from Kolarov, and snapped a powerful header into the back of the net to make it 3-0, which was the full time result.

I didn't mention any real Blackburn chances. That's because there weren't any. Rovers took 5 shots, 4 of them were blocked. Yakubu actually got the only shot on goal, and that came in the 2 minute of 2nd half stoppage time. Horrible game for Rovers. The result puts City 5 points clear of United, going into their match with Norwich tomorrow.