Guardiola believes top-four race will run until final day

Manchester City stay fourth, and are in the fourth slot, after a comfortable 3-1 defeat of Hull at the Etihad Stadium.

Ahmed Elhmohamady’s own-goal, just after the half-hour mark, gave Pep Guardiola’s team a lead at the interval, before they pressed home their advantage.

But Guardiola was delighted with the second – a brilliant team goal that saw every player touch the ball before Sergio Aguero finished Raheem Sterling’s well effort trickled past Claudio Bravo, who was making his first Premier League start since January 21.

Benik Afobe thought he had pulled a goal back with a 30th minute volley that hit the woodwork and the Blues goalkeeper before being cleared, while Boruc saved well from Pedro on 35 minutes. “Now is one step closer to the title and we have seven games left”.

They would have gone behind in the second minute had keeper Thibaut Courtois not prevented a David Luiz own goal with a stunning save.

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Kamil Grosicki and Andrew Robertson made some good runs but carved out no notable chances and their side feel behind when a deep Navas cross was missed by Aguero but inadvertently turned in by Elmohamady.

Marcos Alonso’s brilliant free-kick sealed a Chelsea victory which restored their seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League.

“The message for us is to keep pushing, winning games”, said Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino.

City have dropped points against fellow top-four rivals Arsenal and Liverpool in recent weeks and Guardiola is expecting the battle for Champions League spots to go down to the wire. “I am pretty sure it is going to happen until the end”.

Hazard has scored four goals in four games versus the Cherries. He took his goal brilliantly – from the first touch that got the ball out of his feet to the bodyswerve to the calm finish despite stumbling – and it capped another match where he was the best and most risky player on the pitch. “You have to know that”. “Since I came here I was confident and I have passed that on to our players”.

“Manchester City deserved to win”, he said. We didn’t have a good performance this afternoon. “Now it is important to rest and restart and prepare for the game against Manchester United”.

“It was a pity to concede and then we suffered a bit, but in the second half we managed the game very well, we scored another goal, and we could have scored goals to improve the result against a really good team, with good organisation and a good coach”.