Michael Johnson’s 48th minute goal saw the Blues to their first league win since the derby last month, and the boss is particularly pleased with the reaction he got after a bad day at the office at Ewood Park.
Sven says: “It was a very good win. It was important for many reasons, three points being the main one, but after Blackburn we had to wait two weeks to ask what was the real Manchester City? Was it the way we started the season, or the one against Blackburn? We had the answer today.
“We fought, we played good football and to be fair Villa created a couple of good chances as well. In the end I think we deserved to win and I’m very happy with the performance and the spirit in the team.
“You can’t expect an easy game against Villa, their backline are all big, tall players and all experienced. If we can win all our games 1-0 I’ll be happy, but that’s the Premier League, you don’t normally win with a big score.”
The win sees City go back up the table into second place, but the Manager is keen to play down early season expectations.
“We deserve the points we have, and at Arsenal with a bit more luck we’d have had a point more. Yes, we’re second but some teams have played less games so it’s very dangerous to talk about second, third or fourth place. If you were putting some money on the top four next May, you would put it on the ‘big four’. As long as we play good football, perform and show the spirit we have, I’ll be very happy.”
Michael Johnson took the Man of the Match award, and he was pleased to take the three points as well as going joint top of the City scoring charts
“I’m determined to score with every chance I get, and I could have had a hat-trick today. Luckily, they did not score and we got the win. If it had been a draw with the chances I could have had, I’d have been disappointed,” said Michael.
“It’s only two goals so far, but it’s nice to be joint top-scorer and I’ll be looking to get a few more before the end of the season.”
