Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini is a big fan of several of Aston Villa's players.

Villa remain in the bottom three but Mancini had words of encouragement for his counterpart Paul Lambert and believes his young side are capable of staying up.

He said: "I believe they are a good team. I think they can stop up. The problem they have is they have young players.

"But if they are able to stay in Premier League, next season I think they can enjoy a good season.

"When you are a young team, maybe you can have some problems. But after one year I think they can improve.

"I like Christian Benteke, Charles N'Zogbia, Andreas Weimann - all these players."