A 3-0 home win against Watford was a nice way to start the new season. And for myself, it was great to get off the mark by scoring our first goal.

The goal actually came about after I had a one-on-one with their goalkeeper. I tried to pass it into the corner, but he saved it.

The loose ball ran to their full back and I ran over to shut him down. I pressured him into giving the ball back to our winger, Laurent Charvet. He crossed and I headed it over the `keeper and into the goal.

It was an important goal, as it put us 1-0 up after 58 minutes. I felt my own performance had been average up until then and at times I thought I was doing things that were letting myself down.

But it's amazing what a goal does for your confidence. After I scored I was a different player. Every time the ball came to me, it "stuck", as they say, and we all worked more fluently as a team.

The bookies have tipped Watford as one of the teams who will be in the promotion race. It was a game in which both sides were looking to make a statement, so we were really pleased to win it 3-0.

We could have had more goals, but in a way I'm quite happy it didn't end something like 6-0. With us being Manchester City, people would have seen a result like that and thought it was going to be an easy season for us.

There were one or two players making their City debuts, like Eyal Berkovic and Stuart Pearce who both scored, and I was really pleased they did well.

It will help them to settle quicker. I've seen before that if new players don't play well in their first game, they feel a lot of pressure to do well in the next game and prove to the crowd what they can do. And then they can start to feel they're playing catch-up. But if they play well for three or four games, then they tend to settle into the team much quicker.

To be honest, I thought Watford were on top for the first 15 or 20 minutes. Then we started to get to grips with the ball, Berkovic was dictating the flow of the game from midfield and in the end, it could have been more than three.

The game was shown live on a new digital television channel, ITV 2, and not many people were able to see it. A few of the lads will probably sign up for it, as City are going to be on live about eight times this season.

Our manager Kevin Keegan was pleased and said we'd done well in all departments. He said the strikers were getting in the box and getting on the end of opportunities and that the finishing would improve as we got fitter and sharper.

He was pleased with a clean sheet in his first game and said the midfield had shown a lot of creativity. I've noticed that every time we come in at half-time, Keegan's first comments are always directed at the strikers. At Tranmere, when we didn't play well, that was the case, and on Saturday, when he was pleased with us, it was the same. So he obviously watches us forwards closely.

In the first game, you're just looking to get a good result and as an individual, you're looking for a good performance.

It was a good win and whatever the papers are saying, we know it was just one game and there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Our next game is at Norwich City on Saturday. They lost 4-0 at Millwall in the first match, but that is nothing to go by. On the first day of the season, you get some funny results, teams losing by four or five.

I think it's because when teams get two or three down, they tend to throw in the towel because, being the first game, they have not yet got that fighting spirit back. Norwich will obviously have something to prove.

On Sunday, we went for a swim to relax the muscles and on Monday we had a day off.

Off the field, City have given me assurances that in three months or so, I will sit down with the manager and renegotiate my contract. That has come about because of Wolves' bid for me during the summer.