csconstantine.com

{ REUTERS; GETTY

Itwas a day of contrasting emotions for City's strikers, but Carlos Tevez and Edin Dzeko shone

Here was a tale of two strikers, whose contrasting departures from the field tell us which of the two is keeping his manager awake in the small hours.

The smile Edin Dzeko wore as he left was born of a job well done. It was not just the headed goal he had so needed after a week when his current manager had questioned him and his former manager, Steve McClaren, suggested we may have to wait until next season to see the best of him. This was also a significant blossoming of a partnership with Carlos Tevez, whose 50th City goal in 74 games underlined City's dependence on him. Tevez's clipped cross delivered Dzeko's goal; Dzeko's two exquisite touches released Tevez for his own breakaway goal which delivered such a devastating – if flattering – scoreline. Symmetry in motion.

The cause of Roberto Mancini's insomnia is Mario Balotelli – by far the more naturally gifted of the two strikers; so naturally gifted, in fact, that the manager sees him as developing into a name which chroniclers of the sport will one day bracket with Cristiano Ronaldo and Eric Cantona. But the snood was cast to the floor as he disappeared down the tunnel and Balotelli was in hospital last night, undergoing tests after a clash of heads with Krystian Pearce. The clash was the last act of an afternoon in which we saw some flashes of the acceleration which makes Balotelli so dangerous but also brought his sixth yellow card of a season in which he has started only eight games.

Mancini, who can tame the 20-year-old if anyone can, brushed all this off with his usual insouciance last night. "Sure, he was unhappy," Mancini said. "But it was our plan. We decided before the game that he would play only 60 minutes [because it was] the first game he played from the start [in two and a half months]."

Privately, Mancini is more frustrated than he is showing, and his side's early struggles revealed that his journey towards an established strike force is still in its infancy.

Paul Ince's defence was pitifully frail enough to paper over the problem, though the kind of run City might have in the FA Cup suggests they will need a better-oiled machine than this.

Everton may lie ahead in the quarter-finals if they beat Reading and City progress beyond Aston Villa and as Mancini quite rightly pointed out last night: "We never beat Everton." The manager said there were no signs that Balotelli had suffered renewed pain in the knee which has troubled him all season. "He always holds his knee when he shoots," the manager joked, though the news that Shay Given has aggravated the shoulder he dislocated last season, during last week's warm-up in Greece, is a more serious preoccupation. Given will visit a London doctor this week.

Mancini also said in his programme notes that his players had "learned what the FA Cup is all about at Meadow Lane" though this was not evident in an opening 25 minutes during which Ince's side again deconstructed the notion that a club with a £152m squad will always dominate one worth considerably less than £50,000. The uncertainty Joe Hart displayed when he flapped at and missed a first-minute crossed ran through Mancini's side. You felt in that prolonged period that Ince's impressive record against City – his only defeat was the 5-1 Maine Road reverse in his second appearance for Manchester United 22 years ago – would remain intact. Hart had clawed Alan Gow's 10th-minute free kick around a post before Karl Hawley delivered the outstanding moment of the first half, stepping up to a short pass 20 yards out on the left to bend the ball right-footed beyond Hart and against the angle of his left-hand post.

This shook City out of their stupor. Micah Richards finally delivered Dzeko a cross of the kind he feeds on and watched him hammer a header straight at Stephen Darby – and the momentum shifted. The Bosnian had miscued a header from Aleksandr Kolarov's corner and Yaya Touré's clean connection from David Silva's short pass was turned around the post by the resilient Darby before Patrick Vieira rose to Kolarov's 37th-minute corner to deposit his first goal.

The second was resonant of the first, Vieira heading home another Kolarov corner, though the Balotelli head-clash occurred during the penalty box melee. Tevez ran across the box to collect fellow substitute Gareth Barry's left-footed clipped pass and lift it onto Dzeko's head for the third. Dzeko returned the favour five minutes later, sending Tevez through to round the goalkeeper. The Bosnian should have had a second and Vieira a third though Richards was more assured when he lashed home a defensive clearance from Lewis Gobern.

MATCH FACTS

Subs: Man City Tevez 7 (Balotelli, 60), Jo (Silva, 80), Barry (Y Touré, 81). Unused Taylor (gk), Kompany, Boateng, Nimely. Notts County Thompson 6 (Darby, 60), Gobern (Hughes, 80), Chilvers (Pearce, 90). Unused Burch (gk), Lee, Spicer, Smith. Booked: Man City Balotelli. Notts County Hawley. Man of the match Silva. Match rating 7/10. Possession Man City 54% Notts County 46%. Attempts on target Man City 13 Notts County 3.

Referee M Jones (Cheshire). Att 27,276.

Agences de presses

Labels: Balotelli, Dzeko, finally, fortunes, Independent, Mixed