Roberto Mancini claimed his Manchester City side deserve to finish in the top four this season following their 2-1 win over West Ham.
Goals from Nigel De Jong and Pablo Zabaleta inside the first 15 minutes of Sunday’s English Premier League match at Eastlands proved enough for City to collect all three points, with West Ham unable to add to Demba Ba’s 33rd minute effort.
The victory means fourth-placed City are now seven points clear of Liverpool and Tottenham and on course to secure a Champions League qualification berth.
City and Spurs have four matches left this season, while Liverpool have played one game more.
“Everything is in our hands,” Mancini said. “We’ve been between first and fourth position all season. After what we’ve done, we deserve to be in the Champions League.”
“We are not under pressure. We know we have a big chance in this moment. The Champions League was our target at the start of the season and we are in a good position.”
“We’re also in the FA Cup final so we’ve done a good job.”
“We will relax after May 22. We must get the maximum points we can do. We have four games left and so do Tottenham.”
“The next game (against Tottenham) will be very hard for us but it’s important to get a positive result.”
West Ham meanwhile are now bottom of the league, three points from safety with matches against immediate relegation rivals Blackburn and Wigan coming up next.
And West Ham boss Avram Grant knows his team must pick up close to maximum points in the remaining fixtures if they are to avoid the drop.
“Now we play against a team that are in our area, so we have to win this game,” Grant said.
“I thought that other teams would take more points in the last two games, so the gap stays three points.”
“Our target is to take seven points – and we will try to take all nine – but we are playing against teams that also want the points.”
“But we believe if we use character we have shown in past games away against top teams, we can win games.”
Sun 1 May, 2011