Tevez on fire ahead of Manchester derby

Tevez has enjoyed a great first season at City (GETTY IMAGES)

Former Manchester United striker Carlos Tevez will face his old club on Saturday in arguably the form of his life.

Since moving to Manchester City in the summer, Tevez has scored 28 goals, 20 of them coming in the last 18 league games.

It is a formidable record and his new club are reaping the benefits as they cemented fourth place in the Barclays Premier League table with a 5-1 victory against Birmingham at Eastlands.

Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor scored a brace each with Nedum Onuoha also on target in a comfortable victory.

Onuoha also appeared to have scored the second goal but admitted Tevez got a touch.

Onuoha said: "He can have it, it's fine. He rushed to me at half-time as he's desperate to be top scorer."

Tevez made the breakthrough in the 38th minute when he scored from the penalty spot after Scott Dann was adjudged to have bundled over Adebayor.

The Argentina international stepped up and sent Maik Taylor the wrong way to put City in the driving seat.

Tevez extended their lead before Birmingham pulled a goal back two minutes later with Cameron Jerome heading home.

City responded immediately with Adebayor scoring in the 43rd minute when he got on the end of Bellamy's delivery with Taylor out of position.

They went further ahead in the 74th minute with Onouha shrugging off a couple of half-hearted challenges before scoring and Adebayor scored his second two minutes from time after running from deep.

Manager Roberto Mancini admits he will gladly settle for a narrow victory against United despite seeing his vibrant side score 14 goals in three games.

He said: "I think it is impossible to continue scoring three or four goals in the next game. We will try, but if we win 1-0 I will be happy.

"If we have 1-0 victories in the next five games that will be good for us. Of course we have respect for United but we want to win this game as it is an important one for us."

Birmingham have now failed to win in six league games but manager Alex McLeish expects a positive response.

He said: "We didn't play that badly. It was just City's front four were different quality.

"We added to our own downfall with some sloppiness and there are things to work on. But we are still developing as a team.

"The players will be determined not to let things slip and hopefully we can put things right in the next game."