'No excuse' with title in Man City's hands, says Zabaleta

Manchester City have "no excuse" not to win the Premier League this season says defender Pablo Zabaleta.

Manuel Pellegrini's men have three games in hand on leaders Chelsea, whom they currently trail by six points, and would therefore guarantee triumph if they were victorious in all of their remaining matches this season.
Zabaleta hopes that City, who are no longer involved in the FA Cup or Champions League, can maintain the form that saw Fulham condemned to a 5-0 defeat at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday as they chase a second league title in three seasons.

"We just need to keep focused on what we are doing now," he told Sportmasta. "We need to try to win every game but everything is in our hands.

"We don't have an excuse now. We only have Premier League games and we have time to recover well between the games.
"We know it is going to be very tough until the end but we have a great team. We have enough belief to win this title.

"Everything depends on us. Hopefully we can celebrate something at the end of the season."

City face neighbours Manchester United at Old Trafford on Tuesday and the Argentina international knows just how significant a derby victory would be.
"We know how important it is to win the game for the players, the fans, the club," Zabaleta added. "That is why we need to go there and try to win the game.

"It doesn't matter the situation of United [who sit seventh], the game is special for both teams."