Breathless City in need of a break

MANCHESTER City will be looking for normality to return - if it ever can again - as they prepare for Sunday’s Premier League visit of Portsmouth to Eastlands.

After all the hype and media frenzy which surrounded last Saturday’s game against Chelsea – the first since their new mega-rich owners from Abu Dhabi took control – City are hoping for a more low-key build-up.

Their preparations will be far removed from last weekend as they have been on another European excursion.

After UEFA Cup trips to the Faroe Islands and Denmark, this week it has been Cyprus, where last night they played Omonia Nicosia.

And the match will have provided a perfect opportunity for the new signings to get to know their team-mates.

It cannot have been easy for Robinho and Pablo Zabaleta to arrive in Manchester for the first time last Friday and, after only one light training session, tackle Chelsea.

Manager Mark Hughes and his coaching staff will have been able to spend more time preparing for Portsmouth, while enabling the new signings - who also include Vincent Kompany, Glauber Berti and Shaun Wright-Phillips - to blend with the rest of the team.

While City have had to travel to the Mediterranean Sea, Pompey’s first-ever European campaign kicked off at home last night against Portuguese side Guimaraes.

Pompey qualified for the UEFA Cup by winning the FA Cup and, unlike City, were exempt from the two qualifying rounds.

These are heady days for the South Coast club as the cup success was their first major honour since 1950 when they were crowned league champions.

Pompey arrive at Eastlands on the back of two successive Premier League victories, including a 3-0 triumph at Everton. Those wins followed defeats at the hands of Manchester United and Chelsea in which they failed to score a goal.

Pompey found the net five times in those two fixtures, Jermain Defoe scoring four of them.

Redknapp is looking to Defoe and Peter Crouch, who this summer returned to Fratton Park in a deal which could eventually cost £11million, to forge a little-and-large partnership which will terrorise defences.