Manuel Akanji says Manchester City’s tough January fixture list will make it difficult to keep the “pressure on Arsenal” at the top of the Premier League table.

The Citizens will take on Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham in the next three weeks, and Akanji knows it will be a big task  to stay in touch with the Gunners, especially after dropping points to Everton at the weekend:

“We got one point out of this game, we try to keep putting the pressure on Arsenal and it’s still a long season. We’ve still got a lot of games to play, it’s a busy January that we’ve got now and we try to win all of our next games. It’s not going to get easier. I think Chelsea and then we play in the week against Tottenham and Arsenal, we’ve got United in between, there’s no easy games coming but that’s what we play football for.”

Usually, when a team is seven points behind the league leaders and is heading into such a challenging schedule of games, you wouldn’t back them to stay in the hunt for the title, but this City side is different.

Pep Guardiola‘s team could easily get through this period with maximum points if they play to the best of their ability and, you never know, they may even be able to close the gap on Arsenal if things go their way over the course of January.