Platt: Manchester City can still win the Premier League

Posted Saturday, December 29, 2012 by YAHOO Sport

Manchester City assistant manager David Platt believes his side still has every chance of retaining its Premier League title, despite finding itself seven points adrift of leader Manchester United.

The former England international conceded the points gap at the top is a “significant amount”, but insists the Etihad Stadium outfit is playing well enough to catch its cross-city rival.

"Seven points is a significant amount, there's no doubt about it,” Platt told reporters. “United are in the driving seat but there is half a season to go. I don't think it is insurmountable by any stretch of the imagination.

"It's not as though we are playing badly. We feel as though we are playing well, we are producing efforts on target. We are dominating possession and every statistic in most games, except goals."

Platt further highlighted a lack of goals as City's key current weakness and called for the club's strikers to improve in front of goal.

"In the last few games we have produced enough efforts on goal but if you correlate the statistics, we should be scoring more goals,” he said. "These things have a habit of balancing out over the season. Goalscorers usually have the same quota that they had [in previous years].

"I think if you asked them they would be disappointed but goalscorers go through barren spells. It is just unfortunate that at the moment all of them seem to be having one at the same time.

"It's not just them. Compared to the number of goals we scored last season we are significantly down but that is all around the pitch. We have got to produce better chances and we have to put them away."