Manchester City need to wake ‘the dragon’ against Arsenal: Joe Hart

They are three points behind leaders Leicester – but just a point behind Arsenal, meaning Monday’s match shapes up as a crucial pre-Christmas showdown. Southampton has 21 points on the season ahead of West Brom, while Bournemouth and Newcastle have 16 points each.

After a fantastic start to the season, many thought Manchester City might cruise to this year’s Premier League title, but it has been anything but plain sailing since then.

“The first thing is to win the Premier League, as that is what we play in every week”.

“I’d say in four of the five games, we shouldn’t have been in that position where we needed to win in the last minute, but it’s nice that we’ve got that”.

JOE HART BELIEVES the Premier League title race is only so wide open because Manchester City have not been playing to their potential.

City, despite investing around pounds 150?million on strengthening their squad in the summer, are still massively reliant on a core of players including Hart, Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Aguero. There is still plenty of quality in their team to cause problems, and with the likes of Raheem Sterling, David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne pulling the strings in midfield, Arsenal will have to be at their best to come away with a positive result.

Arsenal’s injury list contains Alexis Sanchez, Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta, Francis Coquelin, Jack Wilshere, Tomas Rosicky and Danny Welbeck.

Make no mistake though, it will be tough game.

City’s website (www.mcfc.com) said Aguero played a full part in Wednesday’s training session and, providing he suffers no reaction, could be ready to play at The Emirates on Monday. Fernando and Samir Nasri remain in the physio’s room.

Riyad Mahrez (Leicester): The Algeria international’s brilliantly-taken goal in the 2-0 win over Chelsea epitomised his talent but he has offered so much more in the Foxes’ charge to the top of the table with 11 goals in 15 appearances.