Benitez booed,as blues hold city at stamford brigde.

Diverse banners and playcards with inscriptions like ''in di matteo we
trust'',''thank you di matteo,MUNICH'',''there's just one di matteo''
were used to welcome Rafa benitez who took charge of his first match
as a chelsea manager against roberto mancini's men at the brigde.

Chelsea opted for a 4-5-1 formation and with manchester city who
needed to win in other to reclaim their position from new
leaders,manchester united fieded a strong as super-sub got a starting
role ahead of tevez and nastasic played in place of lescott.

Both sides tried to settle into proceedings with city dominating
possesion,and it almost paid off in the 20' as a zabaleta cross was
put in the box only for david silva to head closely over the
bar.Chelsea responded late on in the 31' when hazard squared juan mata
from the left flank,with a great position to shoot at goal,the
spaniard opted for a pass to ashley cole,who couldnt meet the
ball,which made joe hart prepare for a goal-kick.[clear cut
chance,should have scored.]

with just 6minutes of play left,kolarov plays a cross into the blues
box,dzeko does well to head for aguero who had other options but opted
for a less-forceful header,it wasnt good enough as cech collects
easily.Vincent kompany does well to explain to the referee after the
half as it appeared that david luiz had held his shirt in the box
whilst a man-city corner was played.

The second half was put underway and chelsea began to dominate
possesion,but still both teams misplaced passes between them.Zabaleta
gets yellow carded,and in the 60',mata places a low cross from the
egde of the box to hazard who backheeled for toress ,but the spaniard
unleashed a
fierce shot over harts bar.Dzeko was replaced by tevez and also romeu
came in for mikel,kolarov gets yellow carded and a late yellow was
offered to mario balotelli who [to the referee] appeared to have dived
after a collision with david luiz at the front of the box.

The match ended in a goalless stalmate with the blues cemented to 4th
position with 24points and manchester city with 29points trailing
united[who stand at 30points at the table top] by a point.