Manchester City struggled away from Eastlands last season but they have an excellent chance of starting the 2009/10 season with an away win at Ewood Park. Blackburn have made a few new signings but look set for a long hard season after losing Roque Santa Cruz ironically to their first opponents of the new campaign.

Young Croatian striker Nikola Kalinic has been brought in to replace the Paraguayan but it’s a big ask for a 21-year-old new to English football. He has been joined by loan-signing Franco Di Santo from Chelsea who is also young and relatively experienced at just 20. The Argentine has previously made 8 Premier League appearances and all of those were as a sub without scoring, so goals may be a problem for Big Sam’s team this season.

Rovers finished the season relatively strongly, at least at home where they lost just once in 2009 against Martin O’Neill’s Aston Villa. Big Sam certainly tightened the team up defensively but they will have their work cut out maintaining their record of 330 minutes without conceding at Ewood as City have some terrific attacking options.

Manchester City and Real Madrid’s spending sprees have been the stories of the summer and I’m sure there’ll be more arrivals at Eastlands in the next few weeks. City now boast an impressive array of strikers and one in particular has a superb record against Blackburn. Emmanuel Adebayor didn’t have the best of seasons last time last out but he will play a key role in City’s hopes this season. His record of five goals in his last 3 starts against Rovers suggests he will be a handful and he will have happy memories of his hat-trick at Ewood last September.

Mark Hughes will be aiming to improve on a poor away record which includes no clean-sheet on their travels since August 2008 but with Kolo Toure having joined and more defensive recruits likely, City won’t be the easy touch they were. Gareth Barry will add control and stability in front of the back-line which will make a huge difference but a lot depends on how quickly this group of talented players gel. Nevertheless, I’m tipping City on Premier 10 to start the new season with a bang at Ewood.

Alan Hansen’s Premier 10 pick: AWAY WIN

Read the rest of Alan’s previews below:

Tags: Alan Hansen, Blackburn, Man City, Premier 10

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 16:46 and is filed under Features, Home Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.