Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho

How Manchester City must have been cheering Cameroon on Wednesday. Had those Indomitable Lions been, well, indomitable and overcome Ivory Coast to knock them out of the Africa Nations Cup you can bet that there would have been a private jet at Malabo airport quicker than you can say "Thank you, Sheikh Mansour" to whisk Yaya Toure and new boy Wilfried Bony back to Premier League action.

In fact, Cameroon lost and Ivory Coast now face Algeria in the quarter-final a day late from City's point of view.

City fans will point out that they beat both Bayern and Roma, in Rome, without Toure this season so why not Chelsea at the Bridge? After all, anything Bradford can do….

But to win at Chelsea they will surely need both Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero to be more convincing than they've been since returning from injury. They may also need another fairytale contribution from Frank Lampard, who scored the late equaliser for ten-man City against Chelsea at the Etihad in September.

Chelsea aren't exactly tearing up trees just now either.

Their League Cup semi-final win over Liverpool was hard won, laced with a little good fortune, and came at a cost; Branislav Ivanovic, Cesc Fabregas and Filipe Luis were among the wounded and Diego Costa is on the FA's naughty step.

Taking five points from their last four league games has been careless from City, undoing the good work of December and allowing Chelsea to reopen a gap at the top.

If Chelsea win and extend that advantage to eight points, no doubt there'll be a school of thought intent on handing Jose Mourinho the title already.

Surely if last weekend at Stamford Bridge taught us anything it's to be wary of declaring anybody the victor of anything too soon.

Head-to-head





• Manchester City have only won two Premier League games at Stamford Bridge (D4, L11) - both 4-2, most recently in February 2010.



• No team has beaten Manchester City more often in the Premier League than Chelsea. They - and Arsenal - have triumphed 22 times.



• Chelsea are unbeaten in the last three league meetings (W2, D1), although City have beaten Chelsea in each of the last two seasons in the FA Cup.




Chelsea




• Jose Mourinho saw one of his teams concede four goals in a home game for the first time ever against Bradford last weekend.



• Chelsea average a league-high 2.4 goals per home league game this season.



• They also have the best home defensive record, conceding just three goals in 10 games and keeping eight clean sheets.



• John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic and Eden Hazard have started every league game this season.





Manchester City




• City are without a win in their last three games (D1, L2).



• They have not lost away from home in all competitions since 25 October against West Ham (W5, D2), scoring 16 goals and conceding just five.



• City have not won a league game without Yaya Toure in the team since last April (D3, L1).



• They are the only team to score in every away Premier League match this season. Their average of 2.27 goals per away league game is a league-high.



• Sergio Aguero scored five goals in his last three games before his injury; he has not scored in four games since returning.