Guangzhou Evergrande defender Feng Xiaoting is confident he and his teammates can continue their domestic dominance despite the continued influx of high-quality foreign talent into the Chinese Super League (CSL).
Luiz Felipe Scolari's side won a sixth straight CSL title last season while also claiming the Chinese FA Cup, and Feng believes the southern Chinese side can add to their haul in 2017.
"Every team in the Chinese Super League is improving greatly and the league is becoming increasingly competitive," he told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
"We've been able to win so many titles and that has proven our consistency and I have no doubt we win a seventh or even an eighth title in a row."
The current transfer window -- which opened on Jan. 1 -- has already seen more big names move to China, with Carlos Tevez signing for Shanghai Shenhua and Oscar leaving Chelsea to play for Shanghai SIPG.
Both players will feature in the Asian Champions League (ACL) playoffs for their new clubs in February, a tournament Guangzhou have won twice in the past.
Evergrande's attempt to defend the title last year, after claiming the continental crown in 2015, ended when Scolari's team were eliminated at the group stage, and Feng blamed the club's disappointing showing on fatigue from the previous year.
"We had a very long season in 2015 and we ended up only having a short rest period," the central defender said. "Professional footballers need time to rest but we couldn't, so at the beginning of 2016 season we were only at 70-80 percent of our full capacity.
"The ACL group stage results also impacted on our domestic form. But the head coach told us to hang in there and overcome that moment. He has his own way to instil strength in the team. His faith and help are extremely crucial to us."
In the same interview, Scolari blamed the failure in the Asian Champions League on poor preseason preparation, denying his club the opportunity to claim a third regional title.
"The early elimination from the ACL in 2016 was because we lack good winter training," he said. "The winter training should also include training matches, but we didn't book any good clubs for that. It means we couldn't enhance the training quality to another level.
"Also at the beginning of the winter training, the bad weather delayed our plan for two weeks, so we weren't prepared when the ACL group stage kicked off."
Guangzhou will feature in the group stages of the 2017 Asian Champions League, which kick off in late February, where the 2013 and 2015 winners will meet former Asian champions Suwon Bluewings from South Korea, Japan's Kawasaki Frontale and Eastern from Hong Kong.