Sat in the stands at St. James' Park after injury ruled me out of our FA Cup clash with Newcastle on Sunday I realised just what I was missing out on.

The stadium was packed to the rafters with 52,000 people - the City fans were singing, the Geordies were singing and I just thought to myself `I should be out there, I wish I was out there'.

But as much as I wanted to play I knew that it would be no good to me or to Manchester City for me to go out, not fully fit and break down after a few minutes.

Despite all I have achieved so far this season I want to make sure I am available to play in the remaining games as we try to secure promotion back to the Premiership.

I might have scored 28 goals but if I had played against Newcastle, made the injury worse and then not played again from now until the end of the season I would have been gutted.

I had hoped to have been fit for the game which, incidentally, we lost 1-0, but I suffered a setback on the Friday in training.

You might recall I pulled a muscle in my thigh a day before our league match with Preston the weekend before last. I had thought I had caught it early enough for it not to be a big problem, but it has turned out to be one of the strangest injuries I have had.

Some days you feel as if there is not a lot wrong, but you do some jogging and you begin to feel it. There are other days when you just stand their stretching and it's there, but then you go running and it seems to disappear.

I had no reaction after training on Friday but when we did some shooting practice at the end of the session it flared up again.

I went for the ball in an attempt to catch it on the half-volley and drive it low towards the goal and it was then that I felt something.

I wasn't sure whether I'd re-injured it or not - it didn't feel like I was back to square one. So I thought the only way to find out for definite was to do a full-on sprint and if I could get through that I knew I would be OK. I might feel a bit of tenderness for couple of days but basically I would be fine.

But when I ran I felt it tighten and I knew it wasn't right. I knew I was ruling myself out of a massive game, but then was it any bigger than the remaining games we have in our league campaign?

Our next match is on Saturday against Walsall, a side struggling down at the bottom of the division and fighting against relegation.

I saw bits of their FA Cup tie against Fulham and they raised their game against the Premiership side, eventually going out 2-1. I think they will do the same against us and it is going to be another very difficult day. But these are the games that we are going to have to win if we want to get promoted and experience situations like those at Newcastle every Saturday.