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Premier League

Nigel de Jong feels new Manchester City signing Patick Vieira can form a midfield trio with him and Gareth Barry.

The veteran midfielder is now fit to start for the Citizens after recovering from a knee injury. He had signed for the club during the January transfer window but was unable to start because of injury.

Vieira then marked his City debut as a 60th minute substitute in the 2-1 defeat at Hull City on Saturday and is in line to start for City against Bolton at the City of Manchester in a Premier League game to be played later today.

With the Frenchman's return from injury City have more options in midfield. De Jong is not too worried that Vieira will break up the partnership he now has with Gareth Barry in City's midfield. Instead he told The Daily Mail that City can afford to have all three of them on the field at the same time.

He said: "I don't like to talk about having a rest especially in this phase of the competition as we have such an important couple of weeks coming up for us.

"Patrick is a great player and I think that he can still be a big influence on this squad of ours because we have a lot of young guys in it.

"The fact that he is now injury free is a big positive for us.

"We are glad Patrick is here because the coach has more options in midfield - it doesn't mean Gareth (Barry) or I have to drop out we could always play with three midfielders."

City will be aiming to get back to winning ways against Bolton later today and they can retake fourth spot with a victory by four goals or more. De Jong feels his team must be prepared for the opposition to raise their game against them because of their higher profile.

"It will hard to forget the game at Hull where we improved in the second half but that is what we must do and now concentrate all our energies on Bolton," said de Jong.

"We missed a couple of chances that might have snatched a point We have dropped points against some teams in the bottom half of the table and we have to make sure we are prepared for them to come at us 100 per cent.

"We are a scalp for teams now and we didn't contend with that well enough at Hull.

"We always try to play football but sometimes you have to win the battle first. It was good lesson. The first ten minutes of any game set the tone and make the difference."