Portsmouth old-boy Benjani grabbed a goal against his former team as Manchester City beat 10-man Pompey 3-1 at the City of Manchester Stadium.The striker grabbed his second City goal since his deadline-day move from Fratton Park to seal the points for the hosts, who had earlier gone in front with two goals in two first-half minutes from Darius Vassell and Martin Petrov.
John Utaka got one back for the visitors, who played 50 minutes with 10 men after the dismissal of Herman Hreidarsson.
Pompey made a lively start and Joe Hart was forced to palm away Papa Bouba Diop's drive from distance inside the first minute before Sylvain Distin misjudged his header from the resulting corner, but City were in front on 11 minutes.
Hesitation between David James and Sol Campbell resulted in the keeper losing the ball outside his penalty area to Benjani, who passed inside to Stephen Ireland. The midfielder's miscued shot then fell kindly to Vassell, who slid home from close range with James stranded.
City doubled their lead 120 seconds later. Petrov fooled Lauren inside the box to create the space for a right-foot shot, which took a hefty deflection off Campbell before rolling past the wrong-footed James.
Diop wasted a glorious chance to get his side back in the game when he headed over from close-range but Pompey halved the deficit on 24 minutes.
City failed to deal with a corner and when the ball was swung in again, Utaka pounced on Jermain Defoe's header to poke past the on-rushing Hart.
Benjani's drive was parried by James before Pompey's task was made tougher by the dismissal of Herman Hreidarsson five minutes before the break.
The Icelandic defender appeared to pull back Vassell as the City striker attempted to latch onto a through ball and despite James being overwhelming favourite to sweep-up, referee Andre Mariner deemed Hreidarsson to have denied Vassell a goalscoring opportunity and produced a red card.
Portsmouth began the second half brightly and were desperately unlucky not to draw level 10 minutes after the break. Sulley Muntari's angled drive was pushed onto the hear post by Hart before Utaka sidefooted the rebound against the outside of the other upright.
The visitors were made to pay for their profligacy and it was Benjani who did the damage. Ireland's through-ball found the Zimbabwe stiker, who sidefooted home inside James' near-post, before respectfully refused to celebrate scoring against his former employers.
Substitute Milan Baros was denied by Hart when the Czech striker found himself one-on-one with the City keeper but the Blues held on comfortably to move above Blackburn into eighth, one place below FA Cup finalists Portsmouth.
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