Manuel Pellegrini has charged his players to replicate their feat of two years ago when City clinched the Premier League title on the very last day.
City’s 3-0 humiliating defeat at Anfield on Wednesday – just days after they beat the same opposition at Wembley in the League Cup final – was their third successive defeat in the league and has left them 10 points adrift leaders Leicester, howbeit a game in hand.
Speaking in His Pre-match conference ahead of Saturday’s encounter with Remi Garde’s Aston Villa who are rooted to the bottom of the table.
Pellegrini said: “Remember the first season I was here? We needed to win the three games in hand and we won the three games. Everyone said we were out of it but we won the games and won the title.
“This group of players will never give up while we have the option to do it.
“We have one game in hand but it’s more important not to think about that but just to improve our Premier League performances.
“We are not going to give up though it’s a lot of points to the leaders. You never know when you are going to lose points. We must continue as far as we can and add the most amount of points we can, then we can see where we end up.
“We try to win every time we play – we just had a bad moment but we have another 33 points to play for.”
Pellegrini blamed Wednesday’s poor display which they lost to Liverpool on fatigue and poor recovery and admit they must not make mistakes against the league’s worst team.
City will welcome back midfielder Yaya Toure to theie fold at the weekend after the Ivorian missed the midweek defeat with a foot injury.
“Yaya had an important kick on his heel – that’s why he couldn’t play on Wednesday but he’s okay now, no problem,” said Pellegrini, who be without regulars Fabian Delph, Samir Nasri and Kevin De Bruyne.
