Manchester City won't change their approach to the title race despite dropping points against Tottenham this weekend.
City's 3-2 reverse at home to Spurs, coupled with Liverpool's earlier win over Norwich, means the gap between the two sides is six points, with Liverpool holding a game in hand that can reduce the gap further to three points.
With Liverpool still set to visit the Etihad Stadium in April, pundits and Liverpool fans have declared the title race firmly open again, but City duo Aymeric Laporte and Rodri insist nothing changes from their perspective.
Laporte said: "It's a disappointing result for the team and the fans. However, we are where we want to be, we are still on top of the table. We just need to carry on doing the same way we have done in the last few months.
"Now we need to turn the page and focus on the next game. We feel disappointed for the defeat, obviously, but the positive side is that the team fought until the end.
"This is the sort of spirit and mentality we need. We deserved a little bit more, in my opinion, but in football sometimes those things happen.
“The Premier League is always a difficult competition to remain at the top week in week out. It was always going to be a tight title race. Liverpool is always going to fight for it, like us.
"Now we have lost some of our gap with them, but we are still on top of the table. We need to keep the focus on ourselves, keep playing the same we have done this season. This result is not going to change the way we are going to face the following games.”
Midfielder Rodri echoed Laporte's warning that City won't be letting their levels slip in the aftermath of the Spurs result.
“We said that every game is tough and every game is demanding," he added.
"We know it is not going to be easy. We have to keep working and know that our next two games are going to be so tough against Everton and Manchester United. We never said it was over, but we will just keep pushing and we want to keep going.
“We knew with the way [Tottenham] play that they wouldn’t need much to punish you. I think that is what they showed. We are a bit upset because we tried and we tried, 11 players in the box all of the time is so tough and demanding to score and then we suffered defensively. I think we needed to be more intense and smarter in the box as they had three chances and scored three goals.
"We needed 90 minutes to score two and the point wouldn’t have been bad considering how the game went. But we dropped in the last minute and I don’t know why.”
