Fabinho suspects Manchester City may be feeing "a little bit of pressure" after Liverpool went top of the Premier League with a resounding 4-0 victory over Manchester United on Tuesday night.
The two teams are locked in a riveting title race and the Reds put the ball in their rival's court by moving two points clear at the table's summit having played one game more. City will aim to make an immediate response and reclaim first place as they host Brighton on Wednesday night.
With just over one month remaining until the final day of the season, any dropped points could prove fatal for either title hopeful. To that end, Fabinho is looking forward to putting his feet up on Wednesday after an emphatic win and insists the onus is on City to get a result against the Seagulls.
"First of all, we have to focus on our games and try to win every game that we have," the Brazil international told Liverpoolfc.com. "Now, maybe City have a little bit of pressure. We have to try to recover, recover the legs; we will have a day off, it'll be important for us. Me personally, I will watch Man City's games but as I said, we have to focus first on our games and try to win our games."
While victories are the only currency Liverpool can afford to deal in throughout the run-in, Fabinho insists Liverpool will not compromise on their principles. "Now, we play just important games," he added.
"Of course the three points is always important but we want to play good football, we want to play our best football, to be on the highest level of intensity, play with quality on the ball because we have a lot of quality in this team.
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"It was, if not perfect, almost a perfect game. It was a big game for our fans as well, so it was important to put a performance like this against a team like Man United. It's really good for us and for confidence as well." The 28-year-old added: "It was a really good performance from everyone.
"Since the start of the game we put the intensity we wanted to put. We created a lot of chances. With the ball we were patient, with a lot of quality.
We recovered a lot of balls in the offensive part of the field - this is really important. Then I think 4-0 is [a fair scoreline] for the game we played."
