A fresh start to a new era

Manchester City's record Brazilian signing scores at the start of a match his side eventually lose to Chelsea.

Robinho, Manchester City's recent signing, celebrates scoring on his debut against Chelsea, but City lost 3-1.

Manchester City's £32.5million (Dh213m) Brazilian Robinho enjoyed a fairytale start to his career in English football - but it was Chelsea, the club he spurned to move to Manchester, who ran out 3-1 winners in a game dubbed by British media as the "Abu Dhabi derby". City are soon to be be bought by a Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed-led group and their fans have been buzzing ever since the news of the takeover broke two weeks ago. But the typically pessimistic bunch would not have dared to dream of the immediate impact Robinho would have. To everyone else somehow it seemed inevitable. The Brazilian's first major input into his opening game in a sky blue Manchester City shirt was to score a goal. That is what he is paid for. That is why the potential owners of his new club helped bankroll his last-minute transfer from Real Madrid. On 13-minutes, the Brazilian's perfectly weighted shot took a small deflection off Frank Lampard's back and flew past a rooted Chelsea keeper Petr Cech. The crowd went wild when Robinho's shot went in. So did he. He was mobbed by his team-mates before sucking his thumb - a trademark celebration - taking a bow and kissing the City badge. The winger was clearly eager to prove to the City public that it was at their club, and not their opponents, where he really wanted to be, despite a summer of pleading to be allowed to join Chelsea, sponsored by Etihad. He was even caught tracking back to stop a marauding Ashley Cole run, something he was rarely guilty of in Spain. But there is a reason Chelsea have finished in the top two of English football for the last four seasons. Luiz Felipe Scolari's side were level three minutes later. John Terry's header from Frank Lampard's corner struck Joe Cole - and from the rebound, the Portuguese centre-back Ricardo Carvalho drove a superb volley into the roof of Joe Hart's net. In the second-half, despite City's best efforts, the side from London closed the game out. First Lampard faked to shoot before driving a left-foot shot past Hart on 53 minutes before Nicolas Anelka, once a City player, slotted home on 69 minutes to make it 3-1 after being put. Despite the Chelsea captain Terry's straight red card late on, for pulling down Robinho's international team-mate Jo when he was through on goal, the side from London held off a late barrage from City to claim the win.