July 8th 2010. An ordinary Thursday except for one small matter. Howard Webb was selected to referee the World Cup final the following Sunday between Spain and the Netherlands. I've been convinced from that moment that Russia will win the 2018 bid for the World Cup.

The difference between winning, and in this case drawing, can be thin. It's a cliche often rolled out that good teams know how to win even when not playing their best. And for a few minutes on Saturday it looked like City might just do that. Alas, a Matthew Etherington goal got Stoke a point in the dying minutes and fair is fair, no more than Stoke deserved.

One of the problems of writing a regular column or blog is when current events are essentially a regurgitation of previous ones. We've seen this now for over a month with the stories about players wanting to leave and the pressure on Mancini regarding tactics and results. Let's see if I can put both to bed for good.

Which should seem obvious as a Man City fan. However as regular readers will recall in the past I have consistently suggested that United would win these contests because their team happened to match up well against City, particularly in midfield. Tonight should be different if City have the team and tactics in place that I suspect.