When the game finished, I believe it was Jack Wilshere and Craig Bellamy who swapped shirts. This was remarkable considering what happened 15 minutes before the game ended.

Wilshere and Bellamy were involved in a semi heated confrontation. Jack was pumped up ready to land the knockout punch across Bellamy's face.

Lineups are in:

Manchester City: Starters: Given, Richards, Toure, Lescott, Bridge, Wright-Phillips, Barry, Ireland, Bellamy, Tevez, Adebayor. Subs: Taylor, Kompany, Onuoha, Weiss, Johnson, Santa Cruz, Robinho.

Arsenal: Starters: Fabianski, Eboue, Song, Silvestre, Traore, Ramsey, Eastmond, Rosicky, Wilshere, Merida, Vela.

Perhaps this fixture is not as big as the previous week's encounter at Arsenal. Nevertheless, this represents quite a significant point in our season. A win would see Chelsea emerge from an eight-game stretch in which it recorded wins over its three Big 4 rivals and a Big 4 wannabe. The Blues won't encounter a similarly difficult stretch until the final seven weeks of the term.

Six of the best from this week's bunch on dangerhere.com.

1. No wonder Arsene Wenger wouldn't shake hands with Mark Hughes after Phil Thompson blew the lid off the carnival of love he's presiding over at Eastlands:

"You see some people who are just having it off and taking it easy and other people are putting in a shift.

FIFA's recent discussions regarding Ireland led me to think about the possibilities of an extra side at the tournament, and what would perhaps be more exciting than including a side who claimed they've been cheated out of the tournament would be to enter an entirely new team.

This team would be made up of international players whose respective countries did not manage to qualify for the finals.

Not quite vintage Spurs, but a hugely creditable performance nonetheless. The 3-0 scoreline makes it easy to forget quite how hard our lot had to work after a testing opening, first in soaking up the early pressure, and then in moving from back-foot to front.

Kick-off had heralded what looked like an ominous 10-minute trailer for the Carlos Tevez Show, but to our credit, while City were allowed a little too much time in midfield they were resolutely kept at arm's length – an arm in this instance being approximately 18 yards long – with the only notable first half save from Gomes coming from a long-range effort.

The Man City boss Mark Hughes is set to name a strong team to play the Arsenal youngsters in this weeks Carling Cup quarter-final match, and insists he will have no problem picking Emanuel Adebayor to face his old club again on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger has already said that he will be making changes for this [.

Time for young Nicky to carry the team

Even up to today it still hurts to look back at Sunday's match. The pride hurts knowing that we are still a distance away from our challenger in the quest for the league title. Arsenal have not had the best of results against the Top 4 in the past year or so.

The transfer window is soon to open and Arsene has said the he will be active during January. Each time the summer and winter sales come around he says the same old thing. We then all get our hopes up wondering who we are going to buy only to realise that when he says we will be active, he really means we will be selling!

It's Man City in the quarter finals of the Carling Cup tonight, a chance to put behind us the weekend just gone and the trip to Eastlands earlier in the season. On a run of seven straight draws, City will be fielding a strong lineup for this one, in the knowledge that silverware is now an expectation, so it is a tough ask for the young side we are likely to field.

Counting on Carlos and Jack

The first semifinal spot of the season comes into contention tonight for Arsenal. It is the quaterfinal of the Carling Cup and it is against our newest member of the clubs that we dislike. Now, I'm sure we all remember what happened the last time we visited Man City but I doubt that we will be able to witness any similar incidents.

Chelsea and Arsenal exited out of the Carling Cup quarter finals last night; Tottenham and Portsmouth lost their games on Tuesday and are also dunzo.

To their fans, we have this to offer by way of improving your mood:

Chelsea: Michael Ballack's tongue (above, quite obviously);
Arsenal: some side abs from a barely-legal boy.

Chelsea and Arsenal exited out of the Carling Cup quarter finals last night; Tottenham and Portsmouth lost their games on Tuesday and are also dunzo.

To their fans, we have this to offer by way of improving your mood:

Chelsea: Michael Ballack's tongue (above, quite obviously);
Arsenal: some side abs from a barely-legal boy.

Tonight we are back in Premier League action against the richest club in World Football. Chelsea travel to Manchester to take on the pretenders at Eastlands. After our midweek disaster against Blackburn the big guns are back and will be raring to go as we look to carry on our impressive form after a fantastic performance at the Emirates.

What a game of football that was.
A good atmosphere. Two very good sides pitted against each other. Good goalkeeping. Strong defensive play. Wonderful, high quality attacking football. Some chippy moments. Players hobbling off. And a penalty miss.
Not to mention a very important three points in the context of other results today that breaks the run of seven consecutive league draws.

Manchester City took the game to Chelsea, increased the pace, steadied the momentum and won the match to win every City heart at the City of Manchester Stadium in Eastland's. City did answer back at every critic and showed the world that they can raise their game against the best opponents and came up with [.

Michael Essien's oh-so-glorious volley against Barcelona is one of ten goals nominated for the FIFA Puskás Award, "bestowed upon the player from either the men's or women's game judged to have scored the best goal of the year."

The likes of Ronaldo, Torres, Iniesta (blah), Nilmar, Adebayor and Grafite a personal favorite among others, are also in the running.

Liverpool vs Arsenal- December 13, 2009 ( 16.00 GMT kickoff) Arsenal will seek to secure their first win at Anfield since October 2003 when they meet Liverpool in Sunday's only Premier League fixture. Both the teams are way off the pace in the league, especially Liverpool, who are a whopping twelve points behind leaders Chelsea.

Drogba: He only gets four touches per game, but he translates that into two goals
An unpredictable weekend is behind us, and we need to look ahead to the mid-week games tomorrow. Let's preview the action:
I. Manchester City @ Tottenham: This is a really exciting matchup for neutrals and non-neutrals alike.

Too early to be talking about six pointers?

Try telling that to the legions of Spurs fans who, quite understandably, see this meeting with Man City as a potential turning point of the season. We're on the peripherals of the crunch, folks, and it's high time we made our intentions clear.

With Man City brushed aside, left to nurse the paper cuts from their own gargantuan chequebooks, Spurs toddle up to Lancashire this weekend-traversing through gritting lorries and blizzards- to take on Blackburn Rovers. Painful memories for this one, as last year, in the same fixture, Rovers somehow took all three points.

Yesterday's result, which saw us move back up to sixth in the table (and only eight points off second with a game in hand), was of course relegated to a minor footnote given events either side of the ninety minutes that encapsulated many of the frustrations of recent weeks.
Hughes said he had no idea of the speculation that was growing about his future, but his decision to axe Robinho and Adebayor following their midweek performances was certainly a statement.

Manchester City fired coach Mark Hughes after the team's 4-3 win over Sunderland this past Sunday. The club hasn't played well lately and they've had some unfavorable results in their last few matches. Man City's new owner, Sheikh Mansour, spent millions of his petrodollars to bring top players to the club such as Robinho, Tevez, Adebayor, and Touré, but Hughes just wasn't up to the job of taking

From the horror at St. Andrews, the title clincher at Old Trafford to Bergkamp's operational masterclass against Everton, here are six matches of the noughties.
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1. Birmingham 2-2 Arsenal: 23 February, 2008

When the fixture computer threw this one up at the start of the season, it was only expecting an innocent encounter.