"Sometimes you need that spark to give you something extra, and it was good to have Carlos back against Chelsea to give us that," said de Jong...People often talk about the lack of experience of finishing fourth or above in the squads of City, Spurs and Aston Villa - and they're right. (Of course, we have Kolo Touré, Emmanuel Adebayor and Patrick Vieira but I'm not sure any of them would get into my first choice City side.)
"If you see the results from the last couple of games, it is a fact that Carlos is the spark we need in the squad. With his attitude and attacking skills he gives us an edge in difficult games. We have a lot of quality players, but he gives us an extra boost sometimes...
"Off the pitch he is one of the boys - he doesn't see himself as a superstar at all. He loves football, and has that South American temper in him which everyone loves," said De Jong, who was at Eastlands meeting schoolchildren in his role as the club's enterprise ambassador encouraging pupils to learn about business.
"I identify with that side of Carlos, because I am a fighter as well, so I love to see him play."
But something that makes me more confident is the characters of our key players. While 'passion' and 'commitment' are often asked to bear more explanatory weight than they ought to in analyses of football, there's no doubt that de Jong and Tévez, as well as our third most important outfield player, Craig Bellamy, are exactly the sort of characters we need in the position we're in. They're brave, determined, and completely single-minded about success. They're warriors and exactly the sort of characters we need if we're actually going to finish fourth. And I look at the most important players at Spurs and Villa - with all due respect to some really excellent players - I don't necessarily think they've all got that attitude de Jong, Bellamy and Tévez possess.
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