Martin O’Neill: “A win over Man City at any time is a great one.
“They are a terrific side, a terrific team, and they are capable of carving out so many chances.
“I believe this is the first time Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez have started a game together, and City haven’t won – so it was a great effort by us.
“I thought we moved it well, caused them plenty of goals and then after we had got the goal, Sessegnon had a great chance, but pulled it wide of the post, and you start to worry a little.
“With a chance like that gone, you’d think Man City would get straight back into it, but thankfully Simon Mignolet helped to drag us through.
“We had to make a late change because John O’Shea had been feeling ill for the last couple of days, so he missed the game.
“It meant Matt Kilgallon coming in, but he coped with it very well as did the rest of the team.
“I thought both wingers were magnificent.
“James McClean was truly terrific, offensively and defensively, and he is getting back to being as dangerous as he was this time last year.
“He has had a pretty difficult time with everyone talking about second season syndrome, but he’s working his way through that and full credit to him.
“And as for Adam Johnson, he’s starting to show some of the great form he is capable of.
“He looked stunned that he had scored, and I have to admit I wasn’t sure myself until I heard the roar of the crowd – it just took a second before everyone realised it had gone in.
“But he fully deserved that.
“He was terrific.
“I hadn’t realised the side that we had last year, but when you look at it in the programme we didn’t have that many options.
"So that was a great performance But in terms of the way we played today, I thought we looked decent and played with a lot of confidence.”