Manchester City 1, Aston Villa 0.

Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson hailed the ''maturity'' of match-winner Michael Johnson as the Blues maintained their 100 per cent record at Eastlands under the Swede.

Johnson scored the only goal in the 48th minute after a neat one-two with Elano to move City up to second in Premier League.

The 19-year-old has only this season become involved in the England Under-21 squad but his all-round abilities have not gone unnoticed by Eriksson.

He 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.''

Eriksson insisted Stephen Ireland would be back in the City squad at the next opportunity - fitness permitting.

The Irish midfielder was not in the squad yesterday after a controversial withdrawal from the Republic squad to face the Czech Republic, when he lied to national team management that his grandmother had died in order to be with his girlfriend, who recently had a miscarriage.

''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,'' added the Swede.

Johnson had the best chance of the first half when, after charging down a Martin Laursen clearance, he was released into the box by Elano but he took the shot on with his right foot to make Scott Carson's job easier.

At the other end Gabriel Agbonlahor got around Kasper Schmeichel after Wilfred Bouma's ball forward but found the angle too tight.

Johnson's strike came early in the second half. He exchanged passes with Elano in central midfield, stepped past Laursen and then advanced into the box before placing his shot across Carson.

John Carew sent a header narrowly wide for Villa and Luke Moore had a goal disallowed for what looked like a push, although as the visitors chased the game both Johnson and substitute Rolando Bianchi had chances to kill it off late on.

Villa boss Martin O'Neill was not impressed by his side's performance on the back of their superb win over Chelsea in the last round of games before the international break.

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

''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 the Chelsea game I wish we had a game the following week, but the big sides can cope with it. We should do better.''