Title destiny is in City’s hands

DEFENDER Pablo Zabaleta claims Manchester City can have no excuse if they do not reclaim the Barclays Premier League crown.

Manuel Pellegrini’s men climbed to third in the table by thrashing Fulham 5–0. Though they trail leaders Chelsea by six points, they have three games in hand with 10 games of the sason still to play. They have also played two games fewer than second–placed Liverpool, whom they trail by two points.

Zabaleta hopes City can pull through with more to spare than when they clinched glory in the last minutes of the season two years ago.

“Hopefully, it won’t be the same as last time. We just need to keep focused on what we are doing now.

“We need to try to win every game but everything is in our hands. We don’t have an excuse. We only have Premier League games and we have time to recover well between the games.

“We know it is going to be very tough until the end, but we have a great team, we have belief enough to win this title.”

City face a test of their credentials with two difficult away games in the coming week.

They travel to fallen champions and rivals Manchester United tomorrow, before heading to fellow challengers Arsenal next weekend.

United have failed to keep pace with the leaders this season, but Zabaleta expects the derby to have lost none of its edge and is anticipating a difficult night at Old Trafford.