And one of the newest recruits, James Milner, has warned the rest of the wannabe top four sides that there is still more improvement left in this City squad.
“The best is to come but it’s the sign of a good team when you can win and not play your best football,” he declared in the wake of the 3-2 success at Blackpool that propelled the Blues to within two points of the league summit.
“Obviously it takes time for a side with so many new faces to become a unit. We have a lot of very good players here, players who are determined to succeed, hopefully we can keep improving as a team, keep moving forward and hopefully you’ll see the best of us soon.”
Blackpool put us under a lot pressure, which we knew they would. They’ve got a good home support behind them and they’re a good team that play it around really well. We managed to ride the storm, score three good goals, and hung on at the end.”
The Blues were again indebted to captain fantastic Carlos Tevez whose two goals took him to the top of Premier League goal charts and in poll position in the race for the Golden Boot.
City’s prolific Argentinian hitman has now found the net 21 time in the current calendar year, no wonder the skipper - who may get a rest in Thursday’s Europa League match, continues to draw praise from his teammates.
“He’s carried on from last season,” said Gareth Barry. “He’s a world-class striker. Last season he got 20-odd goals and I’m sure he can do that again. If he does we’ll be right up there come the end of the season.”
Barry agreed that the latest win, the second in succession on the road – the Blues have lost just once in their last eleven Premier League trips away from CoMs – was another big confidence boost.
“It’s a fantastic start,” he said. “It’s still early doors with some tough games coming up, but if we can keep this run going the confidence will keep growing.”
We got exactly what we expected at Blackpool but we stayed strong and we knew we’d get them on the counter-attack. We scored three good goals. We are getting to know each other’s games still and learning the way the manager wants to play.
...Gareth Barry
“We will hold our hands up and say we didn’t play well at Blackpool but we churned out another three points.”
