Pep Guardiola has urged his Manchester City stars to take advantage of the upcoming fixtures between their Premier League rivals.
City ended a gruelling week on a high when they followed up confirmation of top spot in their Champions League group at Dortmund with a 1-0 win at Leicester that sent them clear at the top of the Premier League for a day. Defeats for Liverpool and Chelsea later in the day allowed the Blues to stretch their lead over those teams.
Tottenham and Newcastle won though, and early leaders Arsenal responded to being knocked off top spot by thumping Nottingham Forest on Sunday to restore their two-point lead to remind City of the stiff competition they still face. Mikel Arteta's side have it in their hands to achieve the psychological advantage of heading into the break for the World Cup as the top team.
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Having survived their trips, Guardiola is keen to make the most of the four home games City have left before the players head either for Qatar or their holidays. Normally someone who focuses exclusively on his own team, the Blues boss has clocked that many of their rivals play each other soon; Chelsea host Arsenal and Tottenham are at home to Liverpool next week before Chelsea then head to surprise package Newcastle in the following gameweek.
City's home matches against Fulham and Brentford are no gimmes, but Guardiola is prepared to rest his stars in the Champions League game with Sevilla and the Carabao Cup tie against Chelsea in order to give his side the best chance of taking advantage of any rivals dropping points. If things go in their favour, it will be the reigning champions who will take top spot when the league breaks up.
"This last week was really good," said Guardiola. "It was so important because now against Sevilla we can recover. The players that don't play much are going to play and the players that played against Leicester are going to play.
"After, we have the Carabao Cup. It's important but it is the Carabao Cup. We have two [league] games at home in Fulham and Brentford.
"I know the calendar - Chelsea play Arsenal, Tottenham play Liverpool - so that's why we can make a good... not gap because it is not definitive, but we can arrive after the World Cup being there on top of the league. We rest well because it was demanding but we have four games at home so we don't have to travel, which is good for us as well because that tiredness always increases fatigue a lot.
"We try to continue to do our job, but I see the team from minute one after Dortmund - how aggressive we were, winning second balls, making two or three chances, conceding nothing in the first half. In the last 10 minutes we struggled but fortunately we could win the game."
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