City fail to eradicate bad habits

Manchester City 2 Blackburn Rovers 2Manchester City for the Champions League? For long spells last night, inspired by a classic display of old-fashioned wing play from Martin Petrov, their more optimistic supporters were at least entitled to wonder whether it was possible - but then something resurfaced that suggests Sven-Goran Eriksson may not have eradicated all of the club's bad habits, after all.

Eriksson will be alarmed by the manner in which his players appeared to lose their nerve after dominating the first half and going into the interval with a 2-1 lead. The second half was a different story as a hitherto disappointing Blackburn side started to pass the ball more productively and eventually wore down their opponents.

Roque Santa Cruz's 84th-minute equaliser was his seventh goal in his last four appearances and, even though there was an element of controversy attached, the referee Howard Webb was perfectly right to allow it to stand. A linesman had flagged David Dunn as offside when David Bentley crossed from the right, but the midfielder was not deemed as interfering with play and Santa Cruz's header denied City a 10th successive league win at home.

The result still means Blackburn have won only one of their last 10 games and Mark Hughes will be concerned by his team's defending because, for long spells, they were in a charitable mood, unusually slack when it came to attacking the ball and, without Robbie Savage, guilty on occasions of not closing down their opponents in the middle of the pitch.

Petrov, in particular, looked capable of troubling the visitors' defence whenever he had the ball at his feet and was willing to run at his opponents. The Bulgarian international has been one of Eriksson's more impressive imports and laid on both of City's first-half goals as well as teeing up an earlier chance for Rolando Bianchi that seemed easier to score than to miss.

Bianchi's failure to steer the ball into an empty net from three yards out will hardly ease Eriksson's misgivings about the Italian but Petrov had already worked out by that point he had the pace and directness to make it a harrowing occasion for Blackburn's right-back, Zurab Khizanishvili.

Within six minutes, the Bulgarian had surged down the left again, eluded his marker and chipped the ball to the far post. Darius Vassell was coming in from his position on the right of midfield and headed in the opening goal.

The lead lasted only a minute before some slack marking from Micah Richards allowed Santa Cruz to flash a header past Joe Hart from Bentley's free-kick.

Petrov was not done yet and within another two minutes he had scorched past his opponent for the third time in 10 minutes. This time his low cross was intended for Bianchi but Blackburn captain Ryan Nelsen was so desperate to clear the danger he dived in to intercept the cross only to divert it beyond his goalkeeper, Brad Friedel.

It was wing play of the highest order, a natural left-sided player running at full pace, with the ball close to his feet, before supplying the killer cross. Hughes was so alarmed, in fact, he brought off Khizanishvili at half-time and reshaped his team, with Brett Emerton moving to right-back, Bentley switching to the wing and Benni McCarthy joining attack. It was a decision that made sense and, slowly, Blackburn came back into the game, with Bentley increasingly influential.

Bentley's cross for the final goal summed up his night, a perfectly measured inswinger that Santa Cruz expertly headed home.

MANCHESTER CITY: Hart, Onuoha, Dunne, Richards, Ball, Corluka, Gelson, Ireland (Garrido 78), Petrov, Bianchi (Elano 64), Vassell. Subs Not Used: Isaksson, Geovanni, Hamann. Booked: Richards.

BLACKBURN ROVERS: Friedel, Khizanishvili (McCarthy 46), Nelsen, Samba, Berner, Emerton, Reid, Dunn (Kerimoglu 90), Pedersen, Bentley, Santa Cruz (Roberts 90). Subs Not Used: Brown, Olsson. Booked: Berner.

Referee: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire).