Joe Bennett relishes taking on stars in Villa full debut

Known as the Capital One Cup these days, it is a competition that generally does not feature high on the list of priorities for managers, players and supporters alike.

For Bennett, though, the cup gave him some special memories as he cheered on boyhood club Middlesbrough to the 2004 final while at the same time making his own way in the game as a teenager at Boro's Academy.

"I remember the League Cup run for Middlesbrough in 2004 when they went all the way to the final and beat Bolton 2-1 at the Millennium Stadium," said the 22-year-old defender.

"I was a Boro fan as I kid and used to go and watch the games so the League Cup probably has a bit more significance to me because it was a big thing up there for Boro to get a cup final.

"I was about 13 or 14 at the time when Boro got to that final and it was a great time to support the club at the time and obviously Steve McClaren did a great job. We also had some great players like Mendieta and Juninho who played in that final as well as a few ex-Villa players like Ugo Ehiogu, Gareth Southgate and George Boateng.

"A good cup run can give you a lot of confidence and help generate a feel-good factor about the place so hopefully we can produce a good performance against City and give ourselves a chance of doing that."

After 92 appearances for Middlesbrough – including four in the League Cup – Bennett took the opportunity to join Paul Lambert's claret and blue revolution when he completed a £2.75m move from the Riverside to Villa Park.

And the left-back admitted the chance to come up against teams of the quality of Manchester City on a regular basis prompted him to leave Boro for Villa.

"These are the kind of games that you want to play in as a young player. I've joined Villa to hopefully play against the likes of Manchester City and test myself against some top players," said the England Under-21 international.

"You only have to take one look at their squad to see it is packed with international quality all over the pitch. It will be tough to face the likes of David Silva and Sergio Aguero – if they play – because they are both top draw players. But these are definitely the kind of challenges you want to take on as a player. I want to play against the best players and Manchester City have a lot of them. They have a big, strong squad and I think whoever plays will be of high quality. We have to match them and show the travelling fans that we can get a result.

"Our fans were quality against Southampton. That's the first time I have seen them. They came in massive numbers and sang all game, which was fantastic. It's such a shame they had to leave the game with such a disappointing result for their team."

Bennett played 22 minutes of Villa's 4-1 weekend defeat to Southampton after coming on 68 minutes in and despite the result was glad to make his first appearance. And he said the pressure will all be on City at the Etihad Stadium this evening given the abundance of quality Roberto Mancini has at his disposal.

"It was nice to get on even though we were 2-1 down at the time and went to lose. It's nice to get some minutes under my belt and even though it's bad circumstances it was good to get on the pitch," added Bennett.

"We have the character to bounce back from the Southampton, definitely. It's good to get a game so quickly to put things right. We want to learn from what's happened and obviously move on quickly. You're going to have ups and downs in football, that's part of the game. We were disappointed but we plan to move on quickly.

"We're going to the Etihad and not many people are expecting us to win. That can be a good thing. That can help, when you don't have pressure on you."