While I was away in Barcelona, I only got to see bits of the City and Wigan matches. Given Cities home form, I don't think that a no score draw was that surprising or that bad a result. They've already had good home results at home against top four clubs. But the Wigan result was terrible. It was another match where we created a good few chances but were unable to finish the opposition off. Torres scored a superb goal after some great build up from Finnan and Gerrard. But Kirkland pulled off some great saves to deny Gerrard, Mascherano and others, to make sure that we were vulnerable to a sucker punch like the one delivered by Titas Bramble with 10 mins to to go. Sickening.

I don't know why our home form has been so bad this season. Part of it can be explained by the lack of key players at vital times. Agger and now Sami missing, we aren't half as resilient at the back. In previous years we would have beaten Wigan 1-0 by shutting up shop once we took the lead. I think that Agger's return will bring a bit of stability and confidence back to the defense which has been a bit panicked of late. Xabi is back now and he should also bring some stability and passing penetration to the attack. I know that he wasn't at his best against Wigan but I think that his passing sharpness will return with game time.

It's the "magic" of the FA Cup 3rd round on Sunday when we face lowly Luton We have to travel to Kenilworth road to face Kevin Blackwell and his hatters. Like the Carling cup, this is a good competition if you win it but doesn't matter all that much otherwise. I wouldn't be unhappy to see some of the youngsters play on Sunday even if they get beaten.

Goran Pandev could be on the move. He's done pretty well for Lazio over the past few years. I don't know how much he'd cost but he might be a good option if we're looking to offload Crouch who's only 18 months left on his contract.

There has been some online chatter that we are looking to buy Ezequiel Garay from Racing Santander at the moment. He's a 21-year old Argentine central defender who can also play at right back. He also has an impressive record of scoring free kicks for a defender. The fee being mentioned is around £8m which would be a bargain.

Fulham are looking to steal a march on Bolton and others by lodging a £3m bid for Danny Guthrie. He's done well while on loan at Bolton and Roy Hodgson sees him as the man to inject some life into Fulham's bid for survival.

That was close. How many times have I said Stevie to the rescue? Here's another one to add to the collection. Torres had opened the scoring with another amazing goal where he slalomed his way through the Derby defense to finish coolly into the bottom left hand corner. He doesn't score too many scruffy ones. But after that we made hard work of it. Sami came off injured and Riise went to centre half. He doesn't look comfortable there and the whole defense looked unstable. Derby got one back and it was the shock we needed to jolt us back into life. Stevie pulled his socks up and got stuck into them. He cracked a great effort off the bar and then with a minute to go he ran 60 yards to set up and score the winner. Nice one my son.

On the face of it the Derby result isn't very good. But when you look at it, it's another away win where we might have slipped last year. The fact that Chelsea and Arsenal slipped up at Villa and Portsmouth respectively, means that we're in a better position in the league. If we win our game in hand we'll go to third above Chelsea. We'd still be 6 points behind Utd but as I've said recently, all we can do is keep plugging away and hope that the others slip up. If we manage to discover a way to win away to the other top 4 clubs then we'll be in a good position to challenge. I'm not saying "we're going to win the league", but I don't think that our challenge is as dead and buried as some think.

The trip to Eastlands on Sunday afternoon is looking fairly daunting now. City aren't as on form as the were earlier in the season. I watched them play Blackburn last night and they really let the game slip from their grasp. Petrov was superb and will cause us problems as will Elano. The fact that Sami looks unlikely to make it is worrying. Hobbs may come in but hopefully Agger is fit enough to start. I know that Rafa doesn't want to risk him after rushing him back too early the last time. If Sami or Agger play then we should have enough but it's a big ask of Hobbs if he has to start.

Rafa has started taken advantage of the post Crimbo sales and bought us a Scottish winger. He's 16, comes from Ross county and is called Alex Cooper. He was impressed with his treatment at the club when he visited Anfield, which is good to hear.

Online rumours have us linked to a move for David Albelda on a free. It sounds like he's definitely leaving Valencia after a bust up with Koeman. I can't see how we need him unless we're getting rid of Momo. He's 30 now but is still a good player and was great for Rafa at Valencia a few years back. He can also cover in defence which is handy given our current crisis there.

I'm off to the wonderful city of Barcelona for a few days on Sunday so my City report will probably be late next week.

Fins ara.