NICK Weaver says he has turned down the chance of first-team football to put pressure on David James as City's No 1.

Long-serving Weaver, one of the last links with the Blues' rise through the divisions, had offers to move elsewhere next season as a free agent, but felt he owed it to himself to try to regain his place in the City side.

Still only 27 years old, the former England under-21 keeper will be entering his tenth season with the Blues, for whom he has appeared 176 times at first-team level.

And he admits he has seldom been more excited or focused about the season ahead.

"People who think I have taken an easy option to sit on the bench for a year are severely mistaken," he said, referring to the contract that will be signed in the next week or so.

"All professional footballers want to play and so do I - for Manchester City. I suppose I could have gone somewhere else and played first-team football, but I genuinely feel I am in good enough shape for the first time to put real pressure on Jamo for the starting role."

Weaver has not begun a City first-team game for more than two years, but has proved his full recovery from the revolutionary knee transplant operation in America that saved his career.

Physical

A successful spell out on loan at his home-city club Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship not only proved his physical well-being but also convinced him that the knee would stand the week-in-week-out rigours of the professional game.

"This will be my tenth year at City and I will be coming back next pre-season hoping to put a real challenge to David James," he declared. "Since he has been at this club this is the longest run I have had being fully fit.

"I still believe I am young enough to have a future here and, as far as I am concerned, I am signing to battle Jamo. I could have gone to other clubs but I want to give it one more year - and if things don't work out, then I will look at it again.

"I have been fit for a long time and I feel great and want a real crack at it. Everyone needs competition and we need three or four keepers at this club all pushing one another to better things.

"Kasper Schmeichel is doing very well. I have been to watch him a couple of times on loan at Bury and he has played well and it has done him good. He will come back and push me and I will push Jamo and that is what it is all about.

"I suppose I am a link with the past and I have been here a long time, but I don't want people thinking I have signed a new deal just out of sentiment. I am sure the club wouldn't have offered me a contract if they didn't think I could do a job and I certainly wouldn't have agreed to it if that were the case.

Training

"I am not part of the furniture. I really believe I can get back into the side and achieve things here. That is what I want to do.

"The loan at Sheffield did me the world of good. I played 14 games, all over the Christmas and New Year period, and didn't miss any matches or any training sessions.

"It gave me great confidence, because the longer you go without playing a number of first-team games, the doubts do creep in. They creep in for other people too and maybe I proved in that spell with Wednesday that I could still do it. Moving there is one of the best things that I have done because it got me back on track."

Weaver admitted he is a different animal now to the one that burst upon the scene so dramatically as a teenager.

"My favourite tipple now is Lucozade," he laughed. "I work hard because I realise I am lucky to be where I am after what I have been through.

"I was so close to never playing again that, no matter what happens now in the rest of my career, I am determined not just to make the most of it, but enjoy it as well. Being able to train every day and not get the aches that I used to is fantastic. That bodes well for the future."

Meanwhile, Schmeichel has agreed another month's loan at Bury after impressing in the Gigg Lane side's battle to stay out of the bottom pair in League Two.

Does Weaver have a future at City? Have your say.