After their blistering start to the Premier League season, Manchester City have been brought back down to earth with something of a bump over the past week or so. With defeat here after a 1-0 loss away to Arsenal the previous weekend, the honeymoon is over for Sven-Göran Eriksson.

Blackburn Rovers should have won at a canter, so incisive was their play, so inviting were the countless chances they created, so haphazard was City’s defending. That an incident-strewn game, which included two sendings-off, remained delicately poised until the final whistle owed much to Blackburn’s profligacy, but it would have been a terrible injustice had Mark Hughes’s upwardly mobile team recorded anything less than a win.

Eriksson had desperately wanted to add to a squad overhauled to the tune of £38 million this summer before the close of the transfer window on Friday, but, having watched the last of his targets slip through his grasp, for the next four months at least, the City manager must work with what he has got. One senses the hard work is only just starting for the former England head coach, but with understandable optimism, he remains “quite convinced” that he has the makings of a quality team at his disposal. “You can see this is a good team,” Eriksson said.

That may be true, but it was not yesterday. City enjoyed their fair share of possession but they did precious little with it. Even Richard Dunne, who was sent off for two bookable offences, and Micah Richards, their defensive linchpin of late, were poor.

“We had difficulty keeping the ball and creating chances in the final third,” Eriksson said. “We were too beautiful today, not dangerous.” Dangerous is what Blackburn were, although not in the way that Arsène Wenger often perceives them to be.

The Arsenal manager’s belief that Blackburn are the masters of rough-house tactics will have been vindicated, on paper at least, because another FA fine will be forthcoming after five of their players were booked and one, Tugay Kerimoglu, was sent off, but this was not a dirty game.

Vedran Corluka and Javier Garrido have done reasonably well for City so far, but the full backs were routinely exposed by Blackburn’s insistence on attacking hard and fast from the wings, where Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Bentley had a field day. David Dunn offered penetration from central midfield, while Benni McCarthy, who supplied the decisive finish in the thirteenth minute when he turned home Christopher Samba’s knockdown from Bentley’s corner, and Roque Santa Cruz gave Dunne and Richards a torrid time.

Eriksson may have accepted and then declined the Blackburn job a decade ago, but he would be hard pressed to have improved the team as quickly as Hughes has.

“We are excited by our start to the season, but it is only a start and we are not getting ahead of ourselves,” the Blackburn manager said. “I have noticed a change in the dressing-room. There is a desire to get the job done and that is a good thing.”

Martin Petrov had tested Brad Friedel early on for City, but thereafter it was all Blackburn. In the 27th minute, Kasper Schmeichel produced a fine save from Santa Cruz, who was denied again seconds later. Not even the withdrawal of Michael Johnson for Emile Mpenza and a switch to 4-4-2 after only 32 minutes could spare City from an onslaught.

Stephen Warnock hurled over a cross that the Paraguay striker headed against the far post. When the ball then bounced awkwardly off Corluka, Dunne headed against his own bar.

City were living dangerously, but the dismissal of Tugay in the 54th minute gave them hope. Barely 90 seconds after being booked for tugging Mpenza’s shirt, the Turk then inexplicably pulled at Dietmar Hamann’s jersey. It was more mad than malicious.

City were then reduced to ten men in the 65th minute when Dunne received a second booking for another foul on Santa Cruz. Pedersen squandered a series of gilt-edged chances, but Blackburn always looked in control. Eriksson has much to ponder.

How they rated

Blackburn 1 McCarthy 13

4-4-2 B Friedel 6 B Emerton 7 R Nelsen Y 7 C Samba Y 7 S Warnock 6 D Bentley Y 7 R Savage 5 D Dunn Y 8 M G Pedersen Y 7 B McCarthy 6 R Santa Cruz 8 Substitutes Tugay 4 YR (for Savage, 17min), Ooijer 6 (for McCarthy, 63), Derbyshire (for Santa Cruz, 86) Not used Enckelman, Roberts

Manchester City 0

4-4-2 K Schmeichel 6 V Corluka 5 R Dunne YR 4 M Richards 4 J Garrido 4 D Hamann 7 M Johnson 5 S Ireland 5 Elano 6 M Petrov 6 R Bianchi 5 Substitutes Mpenza 6 (for Johnson, 32), Onuoha (for Ireland, 71), Geovanni (for Petrov, 76) Not used J Hart, M Ball

Referee M Dean

Attendance 26,881