Manchester City need only look to last season if there was any danger of them getting carried away with their fantastic start to the current campaign, Fernandinho has warned.
City have the chance to make it a perfect 10 wins out of 10 on Saturday when the Premier League leaders head to struggling Swansea City for the second time in four days.
Five of their wins have come in the Premier League -- just as they did last season before their title challenge collapsed with 10 defeats from their next 33 games, as they only just snuck into fourth place above rivals United on goal difference.
Fernandinho says they must learn their lesson from last season and be prepared for a tough fight to stay in the title race.
"In the Premier League we have started well. We have started exactly the same as last season with five wins in a row so we have to be careful," the Brazilian midfielder said.
"We have a long way to go -- it is too early to say who will be the champions next year. We just have to keep working hard every day as we have been doing since the first day of preseason. This is the best way to win the next game.
"We are just working very, very hard in our training sessions. We try to put in our game exactly the same as we do in the week, but of course we are happy. We are playing well and we have to keep it up."
The 31-year-old has been in fabulous form, winning praise from new City boss Pep Guardiola for his tactical intelligence. And there has been talk of a possible new deal for the former Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder, who says he has learned a lot working under Guardiola.
"He has his philosophy to work, his way to train, to play. He tries to show us how important it is to him and how he learned this way when he was a footballer and after when he became a manager," he added.
"He tries to teach us during the training sessions and the games. We have good, clever players that are trying to absorb all those factors to put in our game.
"It's easy to understand him during the game because he prepares us for the game very, very well.
"The time we have to prepare for the games is very short, but he'll show us the slides, we'll go to the pitch, we know exactly what we have to do.
"When he's on the touchline he'll give us some information to change our position or to change something we have to do. It's easy to change positions like that because we work every day. We work very hard. We know exactly what we have to do on the pitch."
Fernandinho also warned that City must not take Swansea lightly despite the Welsh side being without a Premier League win since the opening day of the season and with former United player Ryan Giggs reportedly lined up to take over manager Francesco Guidolin's job.
City then travel up to Celtic in the Champions League on Wednesday followed by Tottenham away and second-placed Everton in the Premier League in a tough run of fixtures which also includes Barcelona and United again shortly after.
Fernandinho added: "The season starts now for us. Swansea is a tough place to go and last season we drew there on the last day of the season.
"I watched their game against Chelsea and they played very well. It's always a tough place to go to and win. This sort of game is going to be crucial for us to see what level we are really at.
"We then have Celtic away in the Champions League and of course it is always difficult to play there. After that we have Spurs which will also be a big game."