MANCHESTER -- Manchester City have to keep the pressure on Premier League leaders Chelsea because the title race is a long way from being over, according to Bacary Sagna.
Chelsea are seven points clear of Pep Guardiola's side and have won their last 11 games with City, taking 15 points fewer over the same period.
After losing successive games to Chelsea and Leicester, City won at home to Watford in midweek followed by Sunday's comeback against Arsenal, and Sagna says they can't afford to drop any further behind the leaders.
"All we can do is keep winning games, just go game-by-game, focus on our games, our performances and not worry about them," the defender told reporters. "The season is still long. They will drop some points at some stage, but we know we can't afford to drop many now.
"We did [well] at the beginning of the season. Then we had a bad period. Now we have a few days to recover and then we start again because we know this is a vital time. The title race will be played until the last game of the season."
City's defence has come in for criticism after keeping just three clean sheets in the Premier League this season and they were quickly caught out against Arsenal when Alexis Sanchez's clever reverse pass slipped in Theo Walcott for their fourth-minute opener. But City responded well and rarely looked like being beaten in the second half.
Sagna, 33, says the team attack and defend as unit and showed their strength with their comeback in the second half, which was completed with goals from Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling.
"Every single game there is pressure," Sagna added. "There was pressure on us because we kept losing and giving away many goals. Then there was pressure because we were playing Arsenal -- a direct rival. But we can deal with that pressure quite well and in the second half we showed that.
"It's not only the defence, we defend all together and we attack all together. We have to switch on as soon as we lose the ball.
"We have to stick together and wake ourselves up, we have to communicate with each other more if we want to be successful and that's what happened in the second half."
And Sagna believes the way City fought back shows they have both the spirit and quality needed if they want to overhaul runaway leaders Chelsea.
"It's not easy when you start a game and concede a goal after three or four minutes. That's what happened here -- we started on the front foot and got caught. It's hard to react from that but we did it," he said.
"We have some character in the group, we have that in some vital players -- and [against Arsenal] we showed that's a vital part of this City team.
"I think everyone responded well when we needed to and in the end we deserved to be on top. With the players we have, the quality we have, we have to be on top."