As openings to new Manchester City seasons go, this one was blistering. For three sumptuous minutes Mark Hughes's expensive charges played like a dream, and Emmanuel Adebayor not only started and finished a goal of stunning quality but looked like he might have stumbled on Didier Drogba's secret formula for reinvigorating himself.
As openings to new City eras go, the whole of the game was less convincing. Blackburn were slightly unlucky. Stephen Ireland's late goal put a flattering gloss on a performance that had been adequately impressive without suggesting the top four need quake in their boots just yet.
Hughes will have been pleased with a clean sheet and satisfied that his players kept their composure under pressure, but not even the City manager would argue the visitors had been a class apart from their opponents. For the 86 minutes or so between the two goals there was not that much to choose between the two sides, and several occasions when Hughes's wisdom in signing Shay Given was abundantly demonstrated.
Yet at least City did not let their lead slip, as City teams of old might have done, and Sam Allardyce's rendition of the hard-luck story will have sounded like music to Hughes's ears. "We should have got something out of the game," the Rovers manager complained. "We had six shots on target in the first half to City's one, and the goalkeeper saved them all. We only have ourselves to blame, or the brilliance of Given."
Hughes, predictably, took a more upbeat view of City's display. "We didn't always show resilience last season, but today it was there for all to see," he said. "There was a real big shift – we made a positive statement. Ideally, we'd have liked to put the game to bed earlier, but the manner of our performance deserved a second goal."
Blackburn's first attempt on goal came as early as the third minute, when Richard Dunne had to scramble a Benni McCarthy header off his own line. Attacking so early proved the home side's undoing, however, as City broke through the vacant midfield with devastating speed. Taking Robinho's pass, Adebayor fanned the ball out to Shaun Wright-Phillips on the right wing, then strode forward purposefully to accept a return pass with a crashing shot from the edge of the penalty area, after a smart turn by the winger had left Stephen Warnock on his backside. "You can't legislate for a slip," Allardyce said grumpily, though he did accept the finish had been "fantastic".
For an Allardyce team, Blackburn boast a surprising number of attacking players and almost all of them had chances in a first half in which City were lucky to preserve their lead. Chris Samba saw a header clawed out by Given, McCarthy put a shot too close to the goalkeeper after Jason Roberts had beaten Dunne with embarrassing ease, Morten Gamst Pedersen found more space and used the ball more cleverly than Robinho and Ireland between them, and to complete an uncomfortable 45 minutes for the City captain Blackburn could have had a penalty when Keith Andrews's shot struck Dunne's arm.
When David Moyes catches sight of Dunne's display, he will probably slap another £10m on Joleon Lescott's price. Roberts had a free header from Lars Jacobsen's cross on the hour but, once again, Given proved impassable.
City were struggling to increase their lead because Ireland was playing too deep and Robinho was not seeing enough of the ball. The latter did not look best pleased to be replaced by a half-fit Carlos Tevez in the second half, yet City's shape improved almost straight away. The City fans had some amusing songs ready for their £25m capture from Manchester United, yet Tevez still cannot play an early ball to save his life and shot tamely at Paul Robinson when a chance came his way.
Ireland also wasted a good chance to put City two ahead from Craig Bellamy's break, the Welshman proving far more effective rampaging down the left than foraging through the middle, though Ireland made amends at the death when getting forward to take a pass from Wright-Phillips and calmly rounding Robinson. It looked as though Ireland might have held on to the ball for too long, but he kept his head and scored. He is too good an attacking player to operate as far back as Gareth Barry, and once Tevez is properly fit Hughes is going to have to think hard about Ireland's best deployment.
For now, though, Hughes is still thinking about how best to spend his club's money. "If I phoned David Moyes direct and asked him to sell his player he would just say no and I would have to put the phone down," he said. "So what's the point in that? We are trying to go through the proper channels, but of course I can understand David's position. Any manager is going to be aggrieved when a big club comes in for one of his players." Big club? Ouch. Hughes might have to pay for that.