The month of December sees City take on Blackburn's blue and whites twice in both our home and away fixtures and the first bout begins at the MKM at a the conventional time of 3pm Saturday 7th as we look to gain our first home win since our emphatic 4-1 destruction of Cardiff back in September with our now injured Belloumi opening the scoring with a brace on 22 and 35 minutes.

Since that last home game our results have been littered with Ls and Ds with very little sign of improvement but Saturday under a new head coach could put all that to rights after gathering just 2 points from 15 in our last 5 home games. Tim Walter's sacking has opened the door to criticism from players about his style and attitude which can account for the unhappy looking performances and our trip to the Riverside showed that players looked to be playing, although nervously, with a little more freedom and style because of his absence. Despite losing 3-1 against the play off zone Middlesborough, Andy Dawson our caretaker manager had a smile on his face with plenty of positives to talk about and build on especially the goal from Burstow scored on 70 minutes after just 1 minute 17 seconds of entering the game as substitute.

The Blue & Whites arrive at the MKM buoyed by a win against promotion contenders Leeds Utd with Todd Cantwell smashing his penalty and debut goal past Meslia in the Leeds Utd net to put them 1 - 0 up in the first half which is how it stayed for the remainder of the match. A player to watch is speed merchant, 22 year old Dolan who is an exceptional winger starting off his career at just 7 years old with Manchester City and will be one to keep a close eye for our defensive line.

Blackburn boast 3 straight wins and sit in 8th spot, 13 points above City on 28, a game in hand and just a win away from being in the play off zone so will be looking for another scalp. Their motto, "By Skill and Labour" is a fair description of a side that grinds points out but they are not without their faults by any means as before the 3 straight wins, their 3 straight losses shows they can be undone which City will certainly be looking to do on Saturday.

City, in state of flux at the moment can take solace that Andy Dawson is front and centre of keeping the lads as focused as possible. A well respected and pro active member of the club staff and firm favourite of the fans I'm confident he can put the brakes on our decline until a new manager is installed and we can start to claw our way back up the table. We've had a full week of training without a midweek game which should have been perfect for the squad to regroup, reset and formulate a new mentality to grab our first home W in 3 months, Hughes is back from suspension, hopefully no new last second injuries and I'm sure a newly invigorated crowd will be present to roar the boys on to victory.

My prediction. 1 - 0 The Tigers.