Defender Michael Ball hopes Manchester City can feed on the derby feelgood factor to secure a place in European competition.City are still on a high after their stunning victory over rivals Manchester United a fortnight ago, their first win at Old Trafford since 1974.

Due to their early elimination from the FA Cup they have not played since but they return to Barclays Premier League action on Monday when one of their rivals for a European place, Everton, visit Eastlands.

"The place has been buzzing, the city has been buzzing," said Ball. "The amount of times people have been coming up to you to congratulate you for the result is great.

"It is always great to go to places like Old Trafford and put a performance in like we did and come away with three points. That's good for any team but being local rivals it's even better.

"But we have got to carry on and get a result against Everton to make those three points at United worth more.

"We have not played our best but the performance against Manchester United showed we can do it.

"We have just got to show it a lot more and hopefully we can until the end of the season.

"If we concentrate on playing 100% and playing to our abilities we will get the three points in a good run of games.

"As you get close to the end of the season you can have a look at targets and where we want to finish but obviously we want to to be in that European place."

Ball, 28, began his career at Everton and won an England cap under Sven-Goran Eriksson - his current manager at City - before moving on to Rangers in 2001 and then PSV Eindhoven.

He returned to England with City when Stuart Pearce signed him a year ago but then found himself out of the side after Eriksson's arrival.

He responded well to win back a regular place and has impressed at left-back this season, with Eriksson claiming he is now a better player than when he picked him for England.

Ball said: "When I was at Everton it was a different style of football from what I am used to now.

"When I went away to Glasgow we played a Dutch style of football with [Dick] Advocaat and, then being used to that, it was the same kind of standard at PSV.

"When Sven walked through this door we wanted to keep the ball and play football.

"Sven hadn't seen that part of my game, so when I showed what I can do he was obviously more than pleased."

New signings, particularly that of Javier Garrido, threatened Ball's chances but the player says he was always determined to fight his way back in.

He added: "Before the season I knew it was going to be a battle for places all around.

"Personally for me it was disappointing not being in there but there was not much I could do.

"All I could do was keep myself match fit and as sharp as possible and wait for a chance.

"When I got that chance I grabbed it with two hands and now it's up to me to keep hold of that shirt."

The only recent blemish on Ball's season came when he was unsighted by two balloons and disastrously misjudged a cross in City's FA Cup fourth round defeat at Sheffield United last month.

He said: "It was a nightmare! It's going to make a few Christmas DVDs isn't it?

"At the time I didn't know what was happening. I thought I had the ball and then suddenly it's changed direction and I was already in mid-air.

"I thought about it a lot afterwards and for a few days I got a bit of stick for it but there is nothing much I could do.

"That was just one part of a bad performance on the day. The coach asked for boost from there to kickstart our season and the lads have gone out and proved it."

City are close to full

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