Man City need to 'wake up' after 'giving away many goals', says Sagna

Bacary Sagna says Manchester City needed to “wake up” after they “kept losing and giving away many goals,” but insists the Blues have now set their sights on league leaders Chelsea following Sunday’s victory over Arsenal.

City are seven points off top spot in the Premier League thanks to back-to-back defeats to Chelsea and Leicester City, in which they conceded a total of seven goals, earlier in December.

Pep Guardiola reacted by settling on a more traditional four-man defence for games against Watford and Arsenal in the last week, and the Blues are now third in the table and focused on chasing down Antonio Conte’s men after winning both of those games.

Sagna believes City’s defensive woes, however, are the responsibility of the whole team, though he insists they showed what they are made of by coming from behind to beat Arsenal on Sunday.

"It's not only the defence, we defend all together and we attack all together," the Frenchman told reporters. "We have to switch on as soon as we lose the ball. There were a few counter-attacks that went against us. We have to stick together and wake ourselves up, we have to communicate with each other more if we want to be successful and that's what happened in the second half [on Sunday].

"We have some character in the group, we have that in some vital players, and today we showed that is a vital part of this City team.

"I think everyone responded well when we needed to and in the end we deserved to be on top. With the players we have, the quality we have, we have to be on top".

He added: "Every single game there is pressure. There was pressure on us because we kept losing and giving away many goals. Then there was pressure because we were playing Arsenal - a direct rival. But we can deal with that pressure quite well - and in the second half we showed that".