By Dominic King

Kevin Keegan has praised the starring role Eyal Berkovic has played in City's promotion push whilst Ali Benarbia has been forced to watch the last three games from the sidelines.

The Algerian, who missed the FA Cup fifth round clash with Newcastle and the last two league games with Walsall and Sheffield Wednesday, returns to the Blues fold for Sunday afternoon's encounter with Coventry much to the manager's delight.

While it was a blow to lose the mercurial skills of the 32-year-old, Israeli international Berkovic has blossomed in his absence and turned in three wonderfully creative performances at the heart of City's midfield that have seen him lauded as the best midfielder in the First Division.

He left the field to a standing ovation during the 4-0 midweek trouncing of Sheffield Wednesday shortly after scoring the third goal - his seventh of the campaign - and Maine Road chief Keegan was eager to extol the former Celtic man's sumptuous form.

"When you have a player of Ali's ability and experience you are going to miss it when he's not there," the manager reckoned. "We did miss him at Newcastle, Walsall and, to a certain extent, against Sheffield Wednesday.

"But Eyal has shouldered the responsibility very well. He'll welcome Ali back because the two of them in this division, and the one higher, will cause problems for any team that they come up against. They are that good.

"When you think that we paid £1.25m to buy Eyal in the summer, you can't help but see what a bargain we got. He's worth much more than that to us. That price isn't a true reflection of his ability and we were lucky that we were able to take advantage of circumstances to bring him here."

Tandem

The prospect of seeing the two of them working in tandem again against Roland Nilsson's side is one that rouses Keegan's spirits and he feels the forward line of Shaun Goater and Darren Huckerby will revel in the service that Benarbia will provide.

"I even join in training now to get on the end of Ali's through-balls but that doesn't mean to say I've been scoring from them!" he joked. "But any forward would be able to see that those two are a dream to play with."

Goater and Huckerby will continue to lead the line in the absence of the injured Paulo Wanchope, whose knee injury has shown only slow signs of settling down.

The Costa Rican has only figured in 18 games this season but has been in sensational form in those matches he has played, having rifled in 14 goals.

Keegan, though, admits that he has been given cause for concern by the re-occurrence of a cartilage ailment that he thought had been cured by an operation in September, but remains hopeful that the 25-year-old will be available for next week's clash with Bradford.

"It is disappointing, but these things happen in football," he said. "There is no exact science with a knee because there are a lot of things going on inside them, though I think we are getting on top of it now.

"By the time Paulo is fit enough to play again, he'll be able to cope with the demands of playing a game every three days as we are working on building up the muscles he has lost which are vital to support his knee. It's not a bad situation but it's not ideal."

Keegan, as ever, will not name his team until shortly before kick-off. He is waiting to assess the fitness of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Steve Howey before making any decisions.

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