Tevez does the trick

CARLOS TEVEZ last night hit a stunning hat-trick to help Roberto Mancini continue his Midas touch as City manager.

Tevez was brilliant as City overwhelmed a dire Blackburn Rovers 4-1 to go into the top four at the expense of Tottenham Hotspur while Mancini won his fourth consecutive match as manager following his appointment last month.

This match was meant to start with the coronation of Patrick Vieira as the new king of the City midfield but the calf knock he picked up his last game for Inter Milan last week has cost him dear.

Sam Allardyce’s men are a well tuned and organised outfit and they are not scared of a tackle or two either. A welcome back to the Premier League against a side so robustly physical would not have been ideal for the 33-year-old so City’s fans had to do with a pre-match wave from the touchlines for the time being.

Thoughts were also extended to another absentee City player in the guise of Emmanuel Adebayor. Football’s ultimate insignificance in the grand scheme of things was reiterated again last week with the terrifying gun assault on Adebayor’s Togo team bus which left three dead as they travelled through Angola to the African Cup of Nations. He was absent here as he is still recuperating with his family and City sources indicated that they expect him to be missing for some time.

Thank goodness for Tevez then.

Prior to kick-off the Argentinean forward was awarded the Barclays Player of the Month for December after notching up eight goals in seven matches and it took him just seven minutes of this encounter to get January off to an equally good start, bundling home a mishit Benjani effort from inside the six-yard box.

Although City had the lion’s share of the possession early on, it was not used to best effect although Rovers offered so little attacking threat that it mattered not.

Shay Given’s main role early on was staying awake.

With six first teamers missing through injury and with club captain Kolo Toure away with Ivory Coast at the African Cup of Nations, Roberto Mancini would probably have been happy to have seen this game fall to the elements like practically every other Premier League encounter since the turn of the year. That would have allowed him to play the game later in the season when he has his more established players back. However, the players who were marginalised under Mark Hughes, namely Benjani, Martin Petrov and Javier Garrido, proved their worth to the greater cause here with solid displays and the scale of City’s workforce depletion was not noticed – although part of that has to also be down to Rovers’ attacking impotence.

As half-time approached, City seemed satisfied with their slight advantage. But not as satisfied as they were when Micah Richards capped off a wonderful move with a second goal that effectively sealed Rovers’ fate.

The defender beautifully highlighted his versatility by making the most of the acres of space granted to him by the visitors by running past five opponents before laying off to Benjani and although his effort hit the post, Richards had kept on running to power home the rebound.

Any lingering chance Blackburn had of getting back into the encounter were extinguished straight after the interval when Benjani wriggled down the right wing and cut back inside for Tevez who looked up and brilliantly curled past Robinson to pour salt in the wounds.

Ironically enough though, the goal actually sparked the visitors into life and when Morten Gamst Pedersen made the most of hesitancy in the City defence to curl past Given, Rovers were given the slightest glimmer of hope with 20 minutes remaining. It was the first goal City had conceded under Mancini’s tutelage and his visible disgust on the sidelines proved he does not want to many repeat encounters yet the way he harried his team to the very end, exhorting every ounce of effort from them until the end proves that behind the scarves, the haircut and the coats lies a manager laced with a streak of steel.

Tevez’s third goal in injury time – another fine finish from outside the box – merely proved that Mancini’s methods are working and working well.

Substitutes for City: Robinho (65;6), Santa Cruz (82;6) Boyata (87)

Substitutes for Blackburn: Kalinic (46;6), Hoilett (46; 6) Olsson (65;6)

REFEREE: Chris Foy (Merseyside) 7: Had a steady and unspectacular game just as it should be. Had nothing controversial to do and let the match flow.

MATCH RATING: 6 – It will not be remembered as a classic but that is not City’s fault. It was a perfunctory and efficient win of the kind that will disturb City’s fellow competitors in the top four.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Carlos Tevez. He did little other than score the goals but what more do City want? Lethal when it mattered and showed his class.