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Manchester City may have been missing Stephen Ireland after Sven-Göran Eriksson opted to omit the Irishman from his squad in the wake of the bizarre web of lies he told his club and the Football Association of Ireland last week, but at least the former England head coach has one young midfield player upon whom he can rely upon.

Michael Johnson is as honest as the day is long and his second goal of an increasingly impressive season — a wonderful run and finish — was enough to see off an Aston Villa team that bore little resemblance to the one that overcame Chelsea a fortnight ago and move City up to second in the Barclays Premier League.

The England Under-21 midfield player signed a new four-year contract with City earlier this month, amid serious interest from Liverpool, and it is not hard to see why the club value him so highly. Still only 19, Johnson is already proving himself to be a match-winner and has clearly benefited from having a rejuvenated Dietmar Hamann, who marshalled the midfield superbly, alongside him.

The goal was reminiscent of the one with which he dispatched Derby County last month. “A photocopy”, Eriksson called it. Collecting the ball 50 yards out with seemingly nothing on, Johnson exchanged a neat one-two with Elano, burst away from Gareth Barry and Nigel-Reo Coker, breezed past a lunge from Martin Laursen and then coolly stroked a precise shot into the far corner. It was as if Colin Bell had suddenly been re-born.

“He is an all-round midfield player,” the City manager said. “You cannot say if his speciality is attacking, defending, shooting or passing. He can do all these things and that’s very rare for a young man. The way he took the second goal, you must be mature to do that but he could not have a better professor out there next to him [than Hamann]. I’d be very happy if the league was finished now, but I don’t think we should talk about positions at this moment.”

Stuart Pearce was present to run the rule over his numerous England Under-21 charges, although before Johnson’s intervention three minutes after the restart, the former City manager could have been forgiven for wondering what all the fuss over Eriksson was about. Villa were marginally the better team in the first period — albeit a shadow of the one that beat Chelsea 2-0 — and it was not for Kasper Schmeichel that the scoreline remained goalless at the interval.

The City goalkeeper was found badly wanting on three occasions in the space of ten first-half minutes and it was only through a mixture of good fortune and able defending that Villa did not take the lead.

In the fifteenth minute, Schmeichel flattened two of his own defenders, Javier Garrido and Micah Richards, going for a cross to which he had no right only to be spared when Olof Mellberg poked the loose ball wide. Seven minutes later, the young Dane’s susceptibility from crosses was once again exposed when he completely misjudged a corner that John Carew headed goalwards but Elano cleared off the line. Moments afterwards, Richards came to his goalkeeper’s rescue.

Like Schmeichel, City seem to be enjoying a charmed life. Aside from the opening-day victory over a woefully out-of-sorts West Ham United, they have not been totally convincing, but Eriksson will not mind that so long as the results keep coming. With the international break having knocked out of their stride a team who were so inspired against Chelsea, Villa must wish that they were having the same rub of the green.

Manchester City 1 Johnson 48

K Schmeichel 6
N Onuoha 6
V Corluka 7
M Richards 7
J Garrido 6
D Hamann 7
M Johnson 8
D Vassell 5
Elano 7
M Petrov 6
E Mpenza 6

Substitutes: Sun Jihai Y 5 (for Vassell, 65min), M Ball (for Elano, 83), R Bianchi (for Mpenza, 86)
Not used: J Hart, G Fernandes

Aston Villa 0

S Carson 6
O Mellberg 5
Z Knight 6
M Laursen 6
W Bouma 5
G Barry 7
G Agbonlahor 5
N Reo-Coker 5
A Young 6
J Carew 6
L Moore Y 6

Substitutes: S Maloney 5 (for Carew, 66min), C Gardner (for Bouma, 82), S Petrov (for Reo-Coker, 82)
Not used: S Taylor, C Davies

Referee M Atkinson

Attendance 38,363