Manchester City v Chelsea
Football: England, Premier League
Saturday, 5th December 2009 - Kickoff 17:30

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Manchester City (7th) Home : 3-3-0 14:9

Manchester City spent £120m during the close season transfer window and for the large part it's been invested well - with City's squad now extremely deep with quality players.

However, the big problem for Manchester City's owners is that without Champions League football to offer potential targets the biggest names and best targets have - by and large - ignored the extremely sizable pay packets to stay with Europe's elite clubs.

This quantity over real quality signing policy means solid performances rather than stunning displays, and this is underlined by City's current run of seven consecutive Premier league draws that sees the Abu Dhabi backed club sitting outside their target of the top four.

Manchester City Team News :
Manchester City's Shaun Wright-Phillips faces a fitness test after picking up an ankle knock against Arsenal.

Craig Bellamy and Stephen Ireland are rated as extremely doubful with knee injuries and Vladimir Weiss has been laid low by tonsillitis.

Chelsea (1st) Away : 5-0-2 16:7

Chelsea are sitting five points clear at the top of the Premier League, with a perfect home record and an extremely effective away record.

Last weekend, Chelsea underlined the benefit of having so many experienced players in their squad with a totally professional display as the Blues took their chances at the Emirates Stadium to beat Arsenal 3-0.

It wasn't quite as one-sided as the newpaper hacks have subsequently written up (do they watch the game at all?), but the over-riding feeling that I did get was that Arsenal were NOT going to score that day.

Chelsea have conceded just 8 goals in those 14 league games, most teams have conceded 2-3 times as much, and that strong defence is the key to Chelsea's title challenge this season.

Chelsea Team News :
Salomon Kalou joins Jose Bosingwa and Alex on Chelsea's injury list after the forward suffered a thigh strain against Blackburn in the Carling Cup.

Those injuries aside, Carlo Ancelotti has a fully-fit squad.

Head to head

Chelsea have recorded league doubles over Manchester City in each of the past four seasons. Of course Man City are far stronger this season than they were then.

The Betting Verdict

Having seen both teams recently in full games (as they beat Arsenal) over the last seven days I'm in a pretty good position to compare the relative merits of the two sides - and the visitors still have a decided edge.

As well as Man City's side did against Arsenal's young Carling Cup side, the young Gunners still dominated the possession against Citeh, and that's something that Arsenal could not do against Chelsea.

I expect Chelsea to dominate the ball, the chances, and eventually the goals, and I'll be on the away win.

The Statistics :

The Pick :

Manchester City 1-2 Chelsea (or 0-2)

PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE :

Manchester City 21% - Draw 21% - Chelsea 58%

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take CHELSEA TO WIN