Unfortunately it didn't start too well. This is Leicester, and they don't ever make life easy for themselves. Under little pressure, Lilian Nalis, on his first full game in the Prem, headed nicely past Ian Walker after only 2 minutes! His swearing after the event looked like he's mastering English quite quickly. Suppose someone has to keep Walker on his toes now Mad Frank is out injured.

City looked a bit rattled and skittish, and defended in great numbers until they started to calm down and come back into the game. As they had more chances against Chelski they seemed to become more confident. They worked hard and showed their fighting spirit to make sure they didn't look like relegation fodder, Nationwide or the poor relations. Dickov buzzed all over the place making sure no-once can accusehim of not being able to irritate these expensive Prem defenders.

Chelski sometimes came forward quite well, but apart from that City matched them and ground out what was needed to contain them, and even had plenty of chances of their own.

Rather embarrassing for City was the fact that the names started to peel off the back of the shirts! Done on the cheap in the club shop we hear. Dickov became Icko, Rogers became Ogers, Curtis became Urtis and Howey became Owey. The commentators had great fun saying "And it's Ogers to Icko, and back to Ogers" at one point.

Five minutes before half time City fans went ballistic as a Muzzy freekick looped into the box and Scowy rose to majestically above John "stupid attempt at a mohican" Terry and head the ball past Cudicini. Back in the game and surprising a few people? Maybe they'll stop writing us off now.

Only 5 minutes into the second half Chelski's new Romanian boy Mutu made a dream debut. His freekick hit the jumping City wal but he followed up the rebound and volleyed a left footed shot which swerved through bodies and past the diving Ian Walker who saw it late.

City fans had another scare as Hasselbaink struck the near post from a tight angle after getting round keeper Ian Walker.

Referee Rob Styles, who had had a quite first half and given lots of decisions to Leicester, then got a bit card happy. Geremi went into a tackle on Scimeca. As he went in he sliped and the two footed studs up effort that was judged by Styles to be a straight red card.

City didn't sit back though and went for the equaliser. City fans were left holding their heads in frustration as we could have equalisded twice, first with Scowcroft sending a header just over the bar, and second with Deane going straight through the Chelski defence only to plant his header against the top of the bar.

Things went belly up for City with 5 minutes left. Thatcher had chased Gronkjaer into the corner and for some reason Alan Rogers came racing over to hassle him too, pushed him over and then tried to kick the ball which Gronkjaer was practically lying on. The linesman was right next to it and pulled Rogers away obviously thinking Rogers had kicked Gronkjaer in the stomach. Gronkjaer was rolling round in agony holding his balls for some reason...straight red card. Stupid thing to do and totally uneccesary.

It got worse. Joey Cole made a run, and Scimeca made a great run after him, hooked his leg in front of Cole from the side and got the ball. Cole went down and naturally pretended his leg had been hacked off. Styles waved his yellow card, Scimeca's second after a yellow in the first half that was even more unfair, and Scimeca was off too.

Down to 9 men, and having given Chelski a 1 goal start, City fans were pretty damn proud of their team who certainly weren't outplayed. If this is the best Cheski can do they aint going to win anything again! If we were Chelski fans we wouldn't be too impressed! City on the other hand showed everyone that they won't be going down this season, and have managed to get themselves some good press out of the game.