David Platt: City must win every game starting with Manchester derby

The chances of Manchester City mounting a successful Premier League title challenge may rest on them winning all of their remaining games, starting with the Manchester derby, according to the club's first-team coach, David Platt. Manchester United are five points clear of City at the top of the table having played a game less but suffered their first league defeat of the season at Wolves last weekend. However Platt said that Roberto Mancini's side cannot expect United to keep dropping points, even if City manage to win at the home of their great rivals on Saturday. "We can't go to Old Trafford, win the match and then hope that a team which has never capitulated under pressure in 10 or 12 years of the Premier League will do so," said Platt. "We should be hoping to do something we can control, which is win every football match we play between now and the end of the season. "That's a tall order but you take each game as it comes and that starts at Old Trafford. If we can take the three points we will take them. But we aren't looking over the road and thinking that [the United] dressing room, with the experience it has got, and the winners it has got, will capitulate just because it loses a game." The derby at Eastlands was a cagey affair that finished 0-0 but Platt said City would be looking to beat the leaders to enhance their title credentials as much as to secure local bragging rights. "We are looking forward to it," Platt told the Manchester Evening News. "We have a dozen games left and go to Old Trafford thinking we are capable of winning the game. It's a big one and the tension has been building up all week but the be all and end all is that it is about three points and continuing along our road. "That's a compliment to where we are at as a football club; that we are not just talking about it in sole terms of it being a derby. It's just another game from which we have to take three points if we are going to achieve what we want to achieve."