Richard Dunne today turned up the heat on former club Manchester City by insisting all of the pressure is on them, not Villa, in Saturday’s top-four showdown.

Sunday’s win over Birmingham saw Villa leapfrog the mega-rich Eastlands club into fifth, level on points with fourth-placed Tottenham.

It makes this weekend’s clash a must-win for both teams but Dunne, whose inclusion in the PFA Premier League team of the year has made yet more mockery of City’s decision to offload him for just £6m last summer, claims the vast sums of money they’ve spent makes failure to reach the Champions League unthinkable for his old team.

“We’ve got a really big game now against Manchester City,” said the defensive lynchpin. “If we can pick up a win it will be an interesting last day. I’m looking forward to it.

“It’s good that it’s worked out that it’s such an important game for both clubs. It’s something to look forward to and hopefully we can get the right result on the day.

“It’s big for City. They’re in front of their home crowd. They have to be in the Champions League, so the pressure’s probably on them. They’re expected to go out and win.

“Whereas us, we’ve come from nowhere over the last couple of weeks and we’ve given ourselves a chance.

“We’re going in on a high we’ve kept a couple of clean sheets and we’ve won our last three so we’re looking forward to it.”

Dunne has hailed the determination of the claret and blue players in the way they’ve responded to their double disappointment in the league and FA Cup at the hands of Chelsea.

“A lot of people just classed it as the end of our season when we lost to Chelsea,” said the Republic of Ireland international.

“But we still felt there were games there to win and we thought we could put a run together and keep that challenge going for fourth. It’s turned out that way. We’ve given ourselves a chance with two games to go.

“That is the strength of the team – keeping going even when things have appeared to be going against us.

“We have always dug in. The week has been a tough one but we’ve come out with three great victories.”