A Carlos Tevez hat trick, 4th place, four goals scored and the first Roberto Mancini era tactical mistake. What a fabulous night for City with so much to talk about. But first I'm going to call out Benjani. I roasted the Zimbabwean striker, rightly so, for a terrible performance against Middlesbrough. Tonight in the first ten minutes Benjani showed more hustle, passion and commitment than he did in the entire Boro match.

The Portsmouth fans loved Benjani because of the total commitment that the player made in a game. The run out against Boro was quite shockingly bad. Here, frankly, quite the opposite. Benjani tracked back, closed down opponents and generally made a nuisance of himself on the defensive end. Up front he worked hard and found himself in the right place at the right time, particularly in the first half to be part of the City goals. Essentially City just found an additional striker tonight.

It was Benjani's shot within 6 minutes of the start of the game that Tevez turned in for the first goal.

City started with the back four of Zabaleta, Richards, Kompany and Garrido. Once more with solid defensive midfielders, Barry and de Jong, in front of him, Richards is starting to show the form he did under Sven. With 5 minutes to go until half time, Richards picked up the ball in front of his own box and started a run forward that reminds everyone why there were comparisons with, ironically, Patrick Vieira earlier in his career. Finally after running the length of the pitch a pass was slipped to Bejani who was unlucky to hit the inside of the post only for the rebound to come to Richards. The England defender made no mistake with a chance that was not particularly easy and City were cruising at 2-0

Out on the wings were Bellamy and Petrov with the Welshman on the left. Now as good as Petrov is one thing that the Bulgarian doesn't do is track back consistently. It's especially noticeable when you compare him with Bellamy. Blackburn were making most of their effective moves down the centre and out to the left and after 28 minutes Mancini countered this by swapping Bellamy and Petrov on the wings. This nullified the Blackburn attack.

After the half Tevez scored his third, improbably from yet another Benjani assist, and City were threatening to run away with the game.

And then for the first time in four matches Mancini made a tactical error. And it is noticeable because until this point he has been pitch perfect particularly on defense. Whenever City do not have possession there are two lines of four defenders across the field. As noted Petrov has issues with this, but the team was playing solid football.

Enter Robinho for Bellamy. Oops! Now City were defending with only 6 players when Blackburn had the ball as the Brazilian was worse than Petrov in this regard. Predictably Blackburn pulled one back and for 5 minutes or so had City on the back foot. A more ruthless attack would have made the game more interesting. It was a mistake, plain and simple. Robinho and Petrov cannot be on the pitch at the same time in those positions the way Mancini plays.

Fortunately Blackburn didn't take advantage and a couple of late substitutions allowed City to play three at the back with the two full backs then tucked in tight which stifled any final push. The icing on the cake was Tevez's third, City's fourth, a lovely shot from the top of the box.

Bottom line, City are in fourth and Mancini's assertion that the title is a possibility is, for the first time, not looking Alice in Wonderland.