Pellegrini takes City spirit as a positive pointer in title chase

Swansea City’s Andre Ayew, center right, fights for the ball against Manchester City’s Bacary Sagna during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Swansea City at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England, Saturday Dec. 12, 2015. I think Swansea played a very good game. We were not 100 per cent recovered from the Champions League game against Borussia Monchengladbach on Tuesday.

“But it is three important points”.

After taking the lead City gained momentum and kept on putting pressure on the defence, but Lukasz Fabianski kept his side in the game towards the end of the first half with some excellent saves. The Ivorian provided energy and drive throughout and it was his determination that brought about the victor.

Swansea created the better chances against City, whose goalkeeper Joe Hart may have been the best player on the field. The goal was a reward.

The 19-year-old has been widely credited with the goal, but Toure says his initial shot was on target and, therefore, the goal is rightfully his. We just haven’t been performing. The delight on their bench was obvious as Gomis appeared to have earned them a creditable draw but that joy soon turned to agony. “Even though time was short and things were not going well, we tried to score, we wanted to win the game”.

“And if we can do that, we’ve shown everyone today what a good team we still can be”. So many people had written us off.

“We are disappointed but we can look back with a little bit of pride in the way the team performed”.

The Manchester City boss has revealed he would rather win the Premier League than the biggest prize in club football.

The French midfielder struck seven minutes before the break, bagging his fifth goal of the season after fine approach work from Yannick Bolasie.

Manchester City’s showing against Swansea City was not worthy of their dramatic 2-1 win, Manuel Pellegrini conceded.

Alan Curtis was in temporary charge for the Swans after the sacking of Garry Monk in midweek and the former Wales global made three changes from the side which was beaten 3-0 by Leicester City.

Kelechi Iheanacho’s deflection in the third minute of stoppage time spared Manchester City’s blushes as they edged out plucky Swansea.

The visitors equalised in the 90th minute through Bafetimbi Gomis and Curtis contended that disallowing Gylfi Sigurdsson’s goal was the wrong decision as Gomis was penalised for a foul on Hart. Toure shot hit Iheanacho’s back and the ball flew into the net to give City the 2-1 victory. But they dug deep and claimed a crucial victory and Pellegrini will be pleased with their resilience. We all feel – staff and players – that we have let him down and we want to go a small way to rectifying that on Saturday.