The Dutch midfielder is on record over his love for getting stuck in on the training pitch click here but even he is grateful for the additional days that the Blues have to prepare for the task of taking on Aston Villa on Monday.
“Believe me, I am going to enjoy the extra day off!” he laughed after his starring role against the Hammer s earlier this week.
“I like coming in to train, but sometimes you have to listen to your own body, take a day off and focus yourself on the next game.
“We had a difficult week last week with the Carling Cup game on Wednesday. But now we have a week between games now with some time to relax and come back in good shape. That will be good for us, and we’ll be ready for Villa.”
Twenty-four-year-old Dutch international De Jong was not in the starting line-up for the first few games of the season, but since getting the nod for the visit of Arsenal he has secured his place with four tigerish performances.
Nigel De Jong is the best defensive midfielder in the league. An absolutely fantastic player, some of his tackles last night were simply brilliant. He has shown in his last three games that he should be one of the first names on the team sheet every single week.
...mcfc_ms on citymancs forum...
Having arrived at City at the tail-end of January, and being ineligible for the UEFA Cup ties last season, he confesses that he is still currently early in his development in English football.
“I’m still learning,” he continued. “You will always pick up a couple things during any game, and I’m not going to finish learning just yet. A game like West Ham was ideal for this, you have to keep working hard in those sort of games and stay solid in defence so that’s when you keep learning about your own game.”
As well as picking up tips when facing world-class opponents in the Barclays Premier League, the holding midfielder stressed that his education continues when competing with his City team mates back in the welcome environment of the training ground.
The quality is incredibly high in this squad, everyone is competing to get into the team and that always comes out in training.
...Nigel de Jong
“The level of training is really good, and that means that we can produce performances like the one against West Ham because everyone is competing, everyone wants to show themselves and everyone is at the top of their game.
“That’s coming out both in training and in games, we’re all still learning of each other’s qualities and it’s making us get even better.”
