Sven hails match-winner Johnson

Manchester City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson hailed the "maturity" of teenage goalscorer Michael Johnson after a 1-0 win over Aston Villa.

Johnson scored the only goal early in the second half after a neat one-two with Elano and City have moved up to second place in the Premier League as a result.

Eriksson said: "He was excellent. You can't say if his speciality is attacking, defending, passing, shooting; he can do all these things.

"That's very rare for a young man. How he took the goal, you must be mature to do that. He had one, two defenders coming at him and he was very calm.

"He is a very good football player and of course he will be better than that."

Villa boss Martin O'Neill was not impressed by his side's performance following the win over Chelsea two weeks ago.

O'Neill said: "The truth of the matter is we didn't do enough. We should be able to create more with the players we have."

"We started off reasonably brightly and looked as though we might cause them problems. We were doing okay in the game without being real bright sparks.

"The goal against us, I thought would be the signal for us to go for the game, which we tried to do. But we didn't create enough.

"The international break is no excuse, it's the same for every side. After Chelsea game I wish we had a game the following week, but the big sides can cope with it. We should do better."

Meanwhile, Eriksson insisted Stephen Ireland will return to the City squad at the next opportunity.

The midfielder was not in the squad after a controversial withdrawal from the Republic of Ireland squad to face the Czech Republic, when he lied to manager Steve Staunton that his grandmother had died in order to be with his girlfriend, who recently had a miscarriage.

Eriksson added: "He is young. He's an extremely good footballer so we can't afford to lose him. When you are young you make some mistakes, you pay for them and life goes on. He will be ready for the next game, 100 per cent I think so, he loves to play football."

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