4 days ago
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Manchester City were pushed to the brink by Fulham but held on to secure three points and maintain pressure on Arsenal
Erling Haaland urged his Manchester City teammates not to dwell on Arsenal following the hard-fought win at Fulham, insisting their focus must be on improving with every game. City held on to beat Fulham 5-4 at Craven Cottage, with Haaland scoring the opener - his 100th Premier League goal.
Tijjani Reijnders and Phil Foden extended the lead, though Emile Smith-Rowe pulled one back before the break. However, City struck twice in the opening 10 minutes of the second half to all but settle the contest.
A brace from Samuel Chukwueze and a strike from Alex Iwobi gave Pep Guardiola's side a scare, but they just about held firm to secure all three points. The result cut City's deficit to Arsenal to two points, though a win over Brentford on Wednesday would restore the gap to five.
After the game, Haaland stressed the importance of coming away with a victory in west London.
"It's important, Arsenal came here and won here," he said.
"Fulham are a great team but we shouldn't think too much about Arsenal. We should focus on ourselves, today wasn't good enough and we know this.
"We need to improve as a team and that's what we'll do."
Upon reaching the remarkable milestone of 100 Premier League goals for City, Haaland said: "It's huge and I'm really proud.
"Of course it's a massive thing, 100 club is a nice thing to be in and I'm happy.
"I knew about it, that's what I tried to do. I try to help the team scoring goals, that's my job.
"Every game is a different game, you can't think of the game that's been you need to focus on what's ahead.
"The reality is we lost against Newcastle and Leverkusen, but now we have two in a row and we have to keep going. It's a tough schedule.
"Many games now in the next month. Game by game and recover for the next one."
City will face Sunderland at the Etihad on Saturday while Arsenal are away at Aston Villa in the weekend's early kick-off.
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