Akanji admitted the team have been left disappointed by a number of goals that have been conceded in games of late, with efforts at both Forest and Bournemouth fresh in the mind.
Akanji, who impressed alongside Ruben Dias on Saturday, was thrilled to secure a shutout this time around and hailed the determination and desire of the whole team in achieving it.
On the clean sheet, he said: “It’s very important.
“It has been frustrating the last few games we have had – being in control but somehow the other team scores.
“We knew we wanted to improve on it – it’s for the whole team.
“Everybody helped out and everyone defended really well at the set pieces.
“We are very happy with the win. We did what we came for – we got the three points; we finally got a clean sheet and we can keep building up from this performance.
“We showed a great performance and especially with the second goal it came at an important time of the game.
“Newcastle put some pressure on us and had some odd chances.
“We defended well as a team and Bernardo came on and scored a nice goal. We are really happy with the win and the clean sheet.
“We knew Newcastle have a very good defence and are good at set pieces, also their transition is really good, so we always had to be in a good position to stop the counterattacks. We did that really well and defended the set pieces.
“As a team, the effort was there to keep out the shots, to block them and Ederson made a couple of good saves too.
“We were helping each other and that’s what teammates do – it’s what we try to do in every game. I’m really happy about these three points.”
City’s win – allied to Arsenal’s last-gasp victory at home to Bournemouth – means we are five points behind the Gunners with 12 matches remaining.
Akanji isn’t letting himself think about the journey of Mikel Arteta’s men between now and the end of the season.
Instead, he’s focusing on his own team’s destiny and how we can finish the campaign strongly.
He added: “I just hope at the end of the season we can win a title.
“We’re doing everything we can – we can’t control the outcome of the Arsenal games; we’re playing game by game and as long as we get our wins, I’m confident we are going to be in a good position.
“We’ve still got to play them here at home and until then we know we have to win all our games. We focus on ourselves.”
