Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini joked he feels good "for a dead man walking" following his side's excellent start to the season.
City have hit the ground running this term after winning all four of their opening games, scoring 10 goals in the process, while they have still yet to concede.
That contrasts with their record last season when they finished eight points behind champions Chelsea, leading to speculation that Pellegrini was set to be given the axe.
"For a dead man walking, not bad," Pellegrini said of his side's start, while referencing such talk of his departure.
After the disappointment of last season, the Chilean said he spoke to his players about improving on their individual displays.
"I had particular meetings with a lot of players [in the summer] and I think they are the first to criticise themselves because they know how they can play," he said. "I'm sure that none of them -- not only the players who were more criticised last season, like Vincent [Kompany], Fernandinho, Yaya [Toure] -- all the players know that they weren't in their best performance.
"And that's why it was important to try and start the season trying to give another face, show another attitude, especially against these kind of teams, teams that are promoted, or last season teams that were relegated and we lost so many points [against]."
Pellegrini is hopeful his side can keep up their impressive start to the season, but is aware their fortunes could soon change.
"Football changes so easy so you cannot know what will happen in the next month," he said. "Now we have the national break. For one side it's good to stop because we have a lot of injured players. For the other side we are playing very well so we want to continue. But it's important to understand we are on the correct way and we must take it game by game because football changes so easy.
"Now we must start with the Champions League. This is the only month when we are playing just one game a week. Now we are going to play eight games each month, we must start with the Capital One [Cup]. There's a lot of things that make football change. That's why it is important to start well and to know why we are playing this way.
"This team is always mentally strong, it is not easy for a team to be under the pressure that we always play. Last season we were very near to being eliminated from the Champions League [at the group stage] -- we are eight points behind Chelsea and we were [then] in exactly same position [as them] in January so under pressure we always play very well."