Rest as good as a holiday for City stars

MANCHESTER City go into Sunday’s derby clash with United two points clear of the Reds at the top of the Barclays Premier League after our 4-1 victory over Aston Villa.

We managed to rest key players such as Samir Nasri, David Silva and Edin Dzeko and still run out

comfortable winners despite a quiet opening half-hour at the Etihad Stadium.

It is always nice to have four different goal scorers and after Mario Balotelli’s cracker, Vincent Kompany, Adam Johnson and James Milner got in on the act.

James curled home a fantastic shot which put the icing on the cake.

The likes of James and Adam do not start every game — only a handful of the lads do — so goals and plenty of minutes on the pitch will do them the world of good.

For the first time this season we are at the summit for more than a few hours, and hopefully we can extend our lead by achieving a positive result at Old Trafford.

Everyone will be desperate to play but obviously the manager can only name 11 men. Those who miss out will know deep down that football is a squad game these days and everyone can play their part.

The good news is that Sergio Aguero is likely to be fit — you need all your big-hitters for a game of that magnitude.

And despite limping off against Villa, in-form Micah Richards should be fine to resume his duties.

But first things first, we entertain Villarreal tomorrow in the Champions League group stage.

Having drawn with Napoli and lost at Bayern Munich, this is a must-win game if we have any designs on progressing in the competition.

It represents our best chance to date of registering our first win in Europe’s leading tournament, as our Spanish opponents are not doing brilliantly in La Liga.

I am sure we rested some of the lads at the weekend with one eye on this.

It sounds like a cliché, but everyone’s focus is on tomorrow’s fixture. The derby will be huge at the

weekend but first we must start to make inroads in the Champions League. A triumph would set us up perfectly for the short trip to our old rivals.