THE City fan who chose the tunes to be played before the first home game of the season has something of the prophet about him.

Alex Ellis chose "Supersonic" and "Club Foot" as two of his three tracks to entertain an Eastlands' full house. The first was the perfect sub-title for an exhilarating first half, the second a apt slogan for the last 20 minutes.

For the first 45 minutes, the £80m strikeforce of Robinho, Carlos Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor, backed up by the darting thrusts of Shaun Wright-Phillips and the smooth perception of Stevie Ireland, produced some fantasy football.

Adebayor strike
This was what City fans had been waiting for all summer, and a sell-out crowd that had slavered with anticipation was soon being transported to the heights of delight.

Wolves were bemused and bedraggled by the slick, exciting football which flowed from the men in sky-blue, and a goal feast looked to be on the cards.

Emmanuel Adebayor continued to cement his affinity with the Blues' fans, desperate for a new goal-scoring hero, by crashing them ahead on 17 minutes.

And the fact that the goal was set up by a sublime touch from Carlos Tevez, making his first start for the club, only enhanced the sense of glee.

Tevez has already begun to win the hearts of the City faithful, not least because of his defection from United.

His willingness to chase every lost cause, fight for every scrap of possession and to shirk no responsibility, is a vote-winner with any set of football fans. Throw in the touches of quality of which Tevez is capable, and you have instant hero material.

Yet this was Tevez below his best, still getting over the disruption to the vital work of pre-season brought about by his heel injury, and recuperating from a dizzying 65 minutes of hard labour in the burdensome heat of Barcelona.

Yet we saw enough to suggest that, with Robinho's occasional brilliance, City have a front three who could yet rip up the Premier League hierarchy.

Still, chances came and went, Mick McCarthy's side clung on like a drowning dog, and the longer the game went on, the more the ghosts of City's past began to cast their shadows over the sun-drenched Eastlands stadium.

Robinho and Tevez both spurned chances and Wright-Phillips - who out-shone his illustrious colleagues with a vintage first-half display - had a sound penalty appeal turned down.

But five minutes before the break came the first warning of what can happen to a team which fails to convert its chances when it is so much on top.

The City centre-back pairing of Kolo Toure and Richard Dunne, both immense in Barcelona and Blackburn, melted away before the advancing Matthew Jarvis, and it was left to Shay Given to come up with a stunning acrobatic save.

The City chances continued to arrive after the break. Birthday-boy Ireland, celebrating the 23rd anniversary of his arrival from the planet Krypton, proved he does have mortal traits with a horribly hashed finish.

Then Adebayor hit the side netting after racing on to Ireland's pass and rounding the keeper, and Robinho had edged offside before knocking in Wright-Phillips' cross.

It gave Wolves hope and Andrew Keogh hit the bar, as the plucky visitors re-doubled their efforts.

The big difference between this new-look City and the "typical" old City was that this one has the mental strength to tough it out. The City of last season would have drawn or possibly lost this match.

City potential

The age-old mantra is that teams who succeed, in any league, are those which win when they do not play well.

To suggest City did not play well would be harsh in the extreme - at times their football was exquisite.

But they did sometimes sacrifice solidity and organisation on the altar of entertainment, and as the game wore on looked more and more disjointed as they were forced onto the defensive.

The Blues were a football version of Mike Tyson at times - ferocious on the attack, but nervy and uncertain at times when pushed onto the back-foot. Like Tyson, they needed a knock-out punch, but it didn't come and they were left to cling on for a points win.

But the bare fact is that City have played two league games - not played to their full potential - have six points in the bag and have strengthened their defence with Joleon Lescott.

As starts to the season go, it does not get much better.

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