´Important´ win pleases Mancini

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini said it was important for his side to beat a resurgent Arsenal on Sunday.

A David Silva goal from close range was enough for the Italian’s side to claim a 1-0 win and move back to the top of the table after a brief stay in second place following Manchester United’s win at QPR earlier in the day.

A win against Stoke on Wednesday will ensure Mancini’s men are leading the top flight at Christmas for the first time since 1929.

“We want to stay at the top of the table for a very long time, not only Christmas,” Mancini said. “We want to beat Stoke but they are like Arsenal; they’ve won four games in a row and every game is difficult.”

“We deserved to win this game. We had a lot of chances and Silva scored an important goal. We are on the top again.”

“We are delighted because after Chelsea it was really important to beat Arsenal and to go on the top of the table and also because Arsenal is a really strong team.”

Despite being pleased with the victory, Mancini admitted that his side will have to scrap with their neighbours if they are to win the title come May.

He said: “We know United are a strong team, we can’t think we can win the title without a fight against United, this is impossible.”

“We know it’s possible that we can go into second position sometimes because when there’s squads like us, United and Tottenham it can happen but it’s important to be top at the end.”

Conversely, Arsenal sit 12 points behind the league leaders after Sunday’s loss, with manager Arsene Wneger admitting it will be tough for his side to mount a serious title challenge.

“Unfortunately for us it was a game we couldn’t afford to lose because it puts us too much (behind),” Wenger said.

“If we had won the game it would’ve come back to six points and with players coming back we would have a better squad in the second half of the season.”

“It will be difficult to close the gap on City but we will try. It’s difficult to take but we’ll continue to fight.”

“It is encouraging (that we got close to City) but at the moment we need encouragement and points and we got only encouragement (today).”