It is with Chelsea that I start - if I don't, they may end up as just an almost irrelevant footnote. Watching their hard-earned comeback against Napoli a week ago, I was somewhat perturbed to hear the TV commentators eulogising about how tremendous their efforts had been. Whilst this was true, and I even acknowledged it in one of my ultra-rare tweets, I would not be amused if I were a Chelsea fan because I would wonder where that effort and commitment had been all season when it was needed time and again. Mr Acronym, AVB, was clearly an unpopular figure with Chelsea's Home Guard mainstays, but they should have been putting in 100% effort regardless. Why? Because managers come and go - especially at Chelsea - but the fans are there always, and it is the fans that the £100k-a-week-Club should have been fighting tooth and nail for. Tonight, it looked like they were going to continue their improved form with a slightly surprising win against City, but it was not to be. Michael Essien can hardly be blamed for the demise of AVB as he missed most of the Portuguese's reign injured; some of the blame for his involvement in the City equaliser can also be mitigated by having the ball blasted at him from barely a yard, but he should also have learned by now that it is better to take a whack in the face than raise your arms to protect your looks - the result, as usual, was a penalty. Having conceded an equaliser, it was hardly shock of the year to see them concede a winner, Chelsea now topping last year's goals conceded tally, itself the Blues' worst in several years. Gary Cahill looks impressive in the opposition penalty area, but the jury is still out on him in his own box. It was hard enough to work out just how good he was playing in a Bolton team familiar with the concept of shipping five goals in one game, but now the pressure is really on him. As for David Luiz...
Just a couple of dozen minutes after hearing more TV commentators spouting about how Chelsea's revival continues, those same commentators were now proclaiming this to be the sign of Champions from City. Does this result suggest City will go on to be Champions? Who knows. What it does do is ramp up the significance of the Manchester Derby as this was one of the key fixtures the men in Red would have had circled as a possible slip up by their neighbours. The comeback aside, the big talking point of the evening was always going to be the return of Carlos Tevez. It was interesting to note the circumstances of his return, City a goal down and looking like staying four points off the lead. In to this situation, the Argentine was unleashed, the crowd mostly a cacophony of cheers rather than the boos he really deserved. Would he have received the same reaction had his side not seemed desperately in need of his talents? Would he have been so readily forgiven if they had been beating Chelsea and sitting top of the league in spite of his absence? We'll never know, but it does seem that the City fans are either extremely forgiving or rather fickle. If refusing to appear in their prized sky blue shirt wasn't enough, the Manchester mercenary rubbed salt in the wound by skipping of to South America rather than building any bridges. A few accusations of being treated like a dog later - sure to go down well among working class fans who would gladly be treated like cockroaches if they could earn a fraction of his wages - and it is a sign of a desperate club that he has now been forgiven. City representative Patrick Vieira has claimed that Manchester United were desperate in bringing back Paul Scholes; maybe they were, yet there was no pride to be swallowed and no wounds to be forgotten in doing so. The story of Tevez at City is as up and down as the see-saw that was City's performance, up, down, and up again, three points in the bag and all still to play for. Just don't expect the neutrals to be quite so quick to put on their sky-blue-tinted spectacles and hold Tevez in quite the romantic light that the City fans appear to yet again.
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