Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has admitted that his side were fortunate to claim all three points from their Premier League match against Swansea City this afternoon.
Having led for most of the game through Wilfried Bony's first-half header, Swansea almost snatched a point at the death when Bafetimbi Gomis netted a deserved equaliser in the 90th minute.
City regained the lead in injury time through Kelechi Iheanacho, earning Pellegrini's side a win to regain top spot in the Premier League table, and the 62-year-old believes that his side showed character to claim victory in difficult circumstances.
"When they draw I thought that the game would finish with a draw," Pellegrini told Sky Sports News. "But once again this team demonstrated the character to win the game. We really didn't play well during the whole game - I think that Swansea made a very good game.
"I was worried before the game because I knew that three or four players were not 100 percent recovered [from the Borussia Monchengladbach game] - especially Kevin [De Bruyne] who didn't play and David [Silva] who just played 60 minutes - and after you have an important achievement like we had during the week, to restart the motivation for this game is not easy. That's why for me these are three very important points.
"Maybe we didn't deserve to have the points today, but I think that these points may repay the points we lost here against West Ham [United] when we missed 18 or 20 chances to score."
City will take on Arsenal in their next league fixture on December 21.
Stephen Topping
