Manchester City v Chelsea: Diego Costa has the Special One holding all the cards

Jose Mourinho came up with his famous equine analogy after Chelsea beat Manchester City last February.

“The title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump,” he said. “Maybe next season, we can race.”

Most observers concluded that the Special One was simply deflecting pressure from his players, and that Chelsea were no more a little horse than Red Rum was.

Yet he turned out to be right. It was Mourinho’s team that didn’t quite go the distance and City that pulled clear to pass the winning post four points ahead of them.

That night at the Etihad, the Blues did a number on City. The victory was no park-the-bus smash and grab. The visitors hit the woodwork three times. It was hailed as a tactical masterclass from Jose.

It meant that Chelsea did the double over the eventual champions. They also took six points off second-placed Liverpool. Yet they still didn’t win the title.

It was nothing to do with his young team being too naive. They simply didn’t score enough goals. City scored 31 more, Liverpool, 30. Chelsea’s three strikers Fernando Torres, Demba Ba and Samuel Eto’o got 19 between them.

Mourinho knew exactly where his squad’s weakness was because all three are now gone. Today Chelsea will be led by Diego Costa. Four games into his first Premier League campaign, he has already scored seven times.

The Spaniard looks tailor-made for the robust environment of English football. If he can stay fit his hamstrings are a recurring worry he has the penalty box presence that ensures a high chance conversion rate.

With back-up from Loic Remy and Didier Drogba, Mourinho now looks to have the firepower to rival City’s, Liverpool’s or anyone else’s.

“I’m not surprised about what Diego Costa is doing in English football because he’s a very good player and is ideally suited to the Premier League,” says City boss Manuel Pellegrini.

“That’s why he’s scored an important number of goals for Chelsea. But, remember, there is Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Schurrle. Drogba is an important player, so there is not just one name.

“We know exactly the way Chelsea will play and they do it very well because they are used to doing it that way.

“We must continue playing in the way we try to do every game but of course we know that Chelsea have characteristics that we must be very worried about. We are not going to change the way we play because we lost 1-0 last year.”

Chelsea bring an unbeaten record with them, whereas City have already surrendered five points.

Pellegrini’s side have made a stuttering start, impressive in some games, strangely off the pace in others.

After the last-minute defeat in Munich on Wednesday, the single point taken at Arsenal last Saturday would look a poor return from three crucial games if they were to be defeated today.

City had a dip the season after they won the league for the first time in 2012. The suggestion was that some of the hunger that drove them on to the final seconds of the campaign had dissipated.

Forewarned should be forearmed and all at the club promised that wouldn’t happen again.

A victory over the team believed to be most likely to take away their crown would be a good way of showing there’s nothing wrong with their attitude this time.

Whenever attitude is questioned at City, the name of Yaya Toure is always prominent.

The Ivory Coast midfielder took the campaign by the scuff of the neck last season, drove them on through the run-in and ended up scoring 20 goals.

But there followed a bizarre summer, with complaints about his birthday cake and the club’s perceived lack of sympathy over the death of his brother.

There were dark mutterings from his agent that Yaya didn’t feel loved at City and might want to leave.

But while Toure has the ability to be any game’s most influential player with his marauding runs, he can also be its least if his mood is not right.

In Munich in midweek, the game passed him by as it did in the home match against Chelsea in February as high-energy opposition midfielders left him looking lazy and slow.

Mourinho will try to negate his powers in a similar fashion today, and the outcome may depend on whether or not Toure allows it to happen.