And now Roberto Mancini feels City have weathered the more difficult away matches and can start to home in on success.
Silva racked up the 50th goal of a remarkable season to banish the bad memories of the first league defeat of the season at Chelsea last week, and reclaim top spot from neighbours United.
“There was added pressure because United had gone top but also because we played two difficult games, Chelsea and Arsenal,” said Mancini.
But the Blues have now played four of the five teams immediately behind them in the league away, and the City boss points out that main rivals United still have to go to Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham as well as visit the Etihad Stadium in late April.
Mancini said: “Maybe in the next few months United have to play Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal away and City. This is important.
“We knew this would be a difficult time – Chelsea and Arsenal are two difficult games, and sometimes you can lose.
“We didn’t deserve to lose against Chelsea, but that is football. It can happen, but it was important to beat Arsenal for this reason.
“We have played at Tottenham, we played against United away, we played against Chelsea away, and we played against Liverpool away.
“That doesn’t mean at home it will be easy but it will be better for us. Also, if we want to stay on the top and we want to win this championship, we need to win many points.
“But we should only do it our way – win, win, win.”
Yesterday’s victory means the Blues have now racked up an amazing run of 30 matches unbeaten at home.
They have won 28 and drawn two since their last defeat at the Etihad, a 2-1 reverse to Everton on December 20 last year. It is the second best unbeaten home run in the club’s history, the best being 41 set from 1919 to 1921.
The win also meant United’s stay at the top – for the first time in two months – lasted just a few hours.
Mancini admitted that the Reds’ win at QPR had added to the pressure of needing to win.
He said: “It was normal that they went top, they played before us. We know United are a really strong team and we can’t think about winning the title – we have to fight against United.
“We know it is possible that we could go into second position sometimes because when there are squads like us, United and Tottenham it can happen – but what is important is that we are there in the end.”
Victory over Stoke at home on Wednesday would send the Blues top at Christmas for the first time since 1929 – and that brought a big smile from Mancini.
“Nineteen twenty-nine? We want to stay at the top for a long time, not only Christmas! We want to beat Stoke at this moment but Stoke are like Arsenal – they have won four games in a row and every game is difficult.”
Meanwhile, City captain Vincent Kompany described the win over Arsenal as “massive”.
The Belgian defender said: “We didn’t underestimate the importance of this game and we’re happy with the result and to keep a clean sheet. It was massive for us.
“We’ve been going for a lot of goals and could have scored many but we didn’t finish the chances we had today, although individually we won most of our challenges.”
Goalkeeper Joe Hart said: “We put pressure on ourselves. Manchester United are brilliant but we knew we had a job to do this afternoon and that if we won we’re back where we want to be.”
England international Hart was only looking forward after City’s recent setbacks, adding: “The Champions League and Chelsea (defeat) have gone.
“You’ve got to pick yourselves up and move on and we have done.” Tweet
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No one has beaten us with 11 men on the pitch but we must continue to take each game at a time as there is never an "easy" one, this is the toughest league in the world to win but we certainly have the ability if we continue to perform - it was great to see us playing at a higher pace, Barry is our most improved player this season, Zab always does well against Arsenal but never saw that performance coming from Kolo!!!
Arsenal were at the very top of their game, it could have ended up 3-1 to City, Nasri improving with every game too.
For me the toughest week is coming up at the beginning of the New Year, come on City!
Kompany, Kolo, Zaba & Barry all showed what it means to them to win yesterday. Apparently they just dont care about anything but their wages! I get the feeling they quite fancy a few medals with 'Winners 2011-12' on them too.
You Berties should try and enjoy it while you can, cos you're living on borrowed time. The Premiership title knows where it belongs, over at Old Trafford, and it wants to come home. You've played to your maximum so far and deserve to be top of the league. United have, by their standards, been poor mainly due to a ridiculous number of injuries, young players bedding in, and the consequent chopping and changing. Amazing, therefore, that United are only two points behind ......In the New Year, due to SAF's legendary powers of motivation and leadership, United will catch and overtake you. The cream always rises, sorry Berties. Number 20 on the way !! Come on Home .....
The pleasing thing is that City are defending from the front. As soon as the ball is lost the forward players are pressing and putting the oposition under pressure.
For the first time I'm beginning to believe that the dream can come true. This was a big test of character for us. The players were under a lot of pressure due to the first loss at Chelsea and the earlier result of United.
Long may the training ground bust ups continue because the players clearly take that passion onto the pitch. We are not the team that we once were. When things went wrong we would capitulate. The team spirit is now evident on the pitch.
Seikh Monsour may have put up the money, for which we are all eternally grateful, but credit must go to Roberto, the coaching staff and all the staff behind the scenes.
The Tevez saga may have been catastrophic for the club, not just from a playing perspective but from a media and image perspective. The club have come out of this with its repuation enhanced. Roberto has clearly had the backing of Khaldoon, Brian Marwood and Seikh Monsour in the way he has dealt with the situation.
Rag fans keep coming on here to say that the players are only playing for the money and not the badge. But they are wrong, they are playing to win trophies that's why they came here. They believe in the project as much as the City fans do.
How many of the players that started for United yesterday were not bought. I didn't watch the match, as they do not interest me, but I'm guessing Giggs and Evans. Giggs was discovered by City and stolen by United and Evans, as many of the Rags state is not good enough.
We are playing the best football in the league closely followed by Spurs.
United have over achieved for the last 18 months, when teams realise that they are there for the taking rather than worrying about their reputation I can see them slipping up.
I am beginning to believe.
Merry Christmas to my fellow blues.
Off topic but funny.
I just heard Clayton Blackmore saying on Talksport that City´s football hasn´t been great but they are grinding out results ......
Has his Sky subscription run out or something !!!???
How DOES it feel Clayton to be the odd man out in 60million ?
I still think Nirvana will be No 1 at Christmas.
I am sure I was not the only person who noticed the totally 'unbiased' commentary of the QPR/MU game with messrs Parry and Wilkins at the microphones.
I hope they were fitted with nosebags to catch all the saliva coming from their drooling mouths, following continual statements of praise, every time ManYoo got the ball and were "sweeping forward in droves".
Thank goodness we do not have 'Smell-a-vision' yet as the excitement was probably running down their legs throughout the game.
And another thing. Was I the only one who heard the clown in the studio's statement of "Manchester City will have to better United's result to remain top this evening" at halftime?..WRONG.
Please dont wake me up if im dreaming !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mancini has only been with us 2 years and look what we are becoming, a major football force that nobody will be able to stop !! Its is especially good for us CITIZENS because we all know that 99% of our fans are TRUE BLUE and not glory seekers LIKE other clubs (RAGS).
CTID CTID CTID CTID
Answered a few questions yesterday from the blog dwellers & radio pundits.
1) Citys' wheels have fallen - CL disappointlment.
2) City won't be able to cope after their defeat at Chelsea
3) City to choke at big game at home against a resurgent Arsenal & an on-form RvP.
4) City can't keep clean sheets (last one was 1/10/11).
5) City knocked off top spot and won't handle the pressure when chasing MU.
I think we coped quite well with those questions..
Your witness m'lud...
Massive win for us against arsenal after the champions league exit (deserved) and the chelsea defeat (undeserved), pleasing to see that we have this growing trend under mancini of bouncing back after defeats and putting winning runs together! three winnable fixtures coming up to bring 2011 to a close to bring us into the new year firing for the united and liverpool matches - will be a testing week for us at the start of january but confident we can come through unbeaten and progress in the league and both cup competitions!!!!!!
A bit off subject, but I cannot believe the amount of empty seats yesterday. I have in the past come on and joked of empty seats but that was for less important games. City fans should be embarrassed, after no success for decades you can't even get 48,000 to come and watch the best team in your clubs history in a top of the table clash to then knock United off the top of the league. Pathetic!! The Sheik must be scratching his head and wonder what more he needs to do to get you lot interested.
Christmas is the period of experience, money no longer matters
Red Gilly fool. It was a sell out. So buzz off.
Several Individual performances. Hart, Richards, Zab, Kolo and Barry. Richards on this form will have to be Included in future England squads as for Hart he is learning fast and produced a performance to underline his credentials as the World number 1.
Joe Hart was magnificent,however I wonder if ever we lost David Silva for a spell how the rest of the team would cope,this lad is awsome.
Red Gilly and all the other obsessed Financial Accountants
We desperately need your help!!!
There are still 66 - YES, a massive 66 tickets available for the Stoke game on Wed and a massive 32 - YES, 32 tickets available for the Liverpool game.
Please save us from potentially hurtful comments from your ilk and buy them - at least you will have actually been to a football game in Manchester then!!
How will we survive your witty and ascerbic remarks about SEATS - it really upsets us.
On a serious note (just in case you didn't realise the sarcastic comments) - the Sold Out signs have been up for every home match - if people that have bought season tickets etc and choose to or cannot attend a match, there's not a lot the club can do - as long as they have paid - I mean, you lot have a forced system of doing that anyway.
So, bother about your own club - we're just loving watching great football - that's what's really important.
rags on here again thought they did not care about us.
It certainly is not just for xmas bobby. Another excellent performance all round yesterday and well done so far blues but lets not take our eye off the ball too early and see it through to the end this time.
So Red Gilly.......... the 47300 fans that filled our stadium (700) short of capacity is a joke.........well what about your red scum's last home match????? 75700 sounds alot doesn't it but in a 80000 capacity stadium thats 4300 empty seats...........who's the joke now .........stick to writing dribble on your own teams site.........top of the table numpty get used to being below us.............CTID
After the travesty of monday nights refereeing blunder fest and how quickly the media started to shout that citys bubble had burst, yesterdays game was the day i became convinced that we have what it takes to win the title.
The Rags are in for a lot of pain for a lot of years. With the retirement of BF on the horizon and the prospect of the bond issue maturing and no CL FOOTBALL the tide has finally turned for good.
Thank god we've reached the majic 40 points... Guess we won't be relegated then.....
Thank god we've reached the majic 40 points... Guess we won't be relegated then.....
I for one am not getting too carried away with City riding high at the top of the prem, well i was until a Rag at work explained to me why the blues are currently top of the league.
Apart from ruining football with all the money they have spent it seems that the meteoric rise of gods own club is down to luck. The 6..1 was only really 3..1 because the last three goals were scored in injury time and Yoonihed were tired.. and we only got those three because their central defensive kingpin( Jonny Evans) was unfairly dismissed.
We only beat the Spuds 5..1 because of A,rrys forthcoming date with the Crown Court and it was cold that day . So lets all calm down and thank the lord at least we wont be going down this season. Know your place city fans and stop getting giddy , lets leave the big CL evenings to the mighty rags and the bin dippers. oh forgot their not in it either.
Red Gilly could the reason be that the wages in Manchester are not as high as the wages down south where your supporters all come from. And don't forget the wheels at O.T are starting to come off the tracks
After United play at Spurs and Chelsea and face a better Arsenal away - then I will take their comments about playing badly and only being 2 points behind City more seriously.
Although if certain teams continue to rest players and give up 3 points before a visit to OT when looking at their fixture list, we may we able to judge more fairly?.