Manchester City have ‘competed like animals’ in title race - Fernandinho

Fernandinho has said Manchester City are competing ‘like animals’ in their pursuit to retain their Premier League crown.

City moved one step closer to achieving that aim on Wednesday night when they beat local rivals Manchester United 2-0 at Old Trafford.

The victory moved them ahead of Liverpool in the title race, with three games remaining for each club as the season draws to a close.

Speaking after the Manchester derby, Fernandinho believes that the performance on Wednesday highlights City’s battling qualities ahead of the final weeks of the 2018/19 campaign

“Yes [we are fighting] – but not just tonight, in general every game,” the midfielder said after the victory.

“Especially last Saturday after the defeat [over two legs] against Tottenham, the way we played from the first minute. 

“We showed the desire in competing for every ball like animals. I think this is the spirit of a team that wants to be champions.”

“The important thing we talked about before the game was we cannot concede any goals, because we have the players up front who can score the goals for us.

“In any action they can create any chances and score goals, and that is what happened.

“The first half was a little bit weird for us because we couldn’t find the space we find every game but in the second half we found the space and created a lot of chances to score. Finally we scored two goals. It was a massive three points.”

The victory against the Red Devils could prove vital in City’s hunt to win the title and Pep Guardiola’s men know they only need to match Liverpool’s results in the run-in to claim their fourth Premier League title.

Fernandinho believes this feat would be even more impressive given they once trailed their closets rivals by seven points.

“If you look back to January, they [Liverpool] could have been 10 points clear after our game,” said the Brazilian.

“We didn't want that. We reduced the gap to four points and now we are one point up. That is the way the Premier League is going to be decided and I hope we can do our job and win those three games, and be champions again.”

Next up for City is a tough trip to Turf Moor on Sunday, a ground where even the centurions dropped points last year.

“It is going to be a very important, very difficult game for us,” said Fernandinho. “Now we have three games to play, three finals, and we want to try to win those games."