Manchester: Manchester City still have a chance of winning the Premier League title this season, defender Aleksandar Kolarov has insisted — despite his manager Pep Guardiola giving up the chase at the weekend.

City slipped to fifth position and 10 points behind leaders Chelsea after 21 games following Sunday’s 4-0 thrashing at Everton but will hope to get back to winning ways when they host second-placed Tottenham Hotspur this weekend.

“I still think the title race will go to the very last day and we have to make sure we’re involved,” Kolarov told the club website (www.mancity.com).

“We just need to turn more games into wins because we’ve dominated some matches but not ended up winning,” he said.

“Every game is tough in the Premier League whether they are at the top or the bottom. Guardiola wants us to be 100 per cent professional in everything we do — if we want to win things, every small detail is important.” Kolarov also voiced his support for the under-fire manager.

“For all the players it is a great pleasure to play under him because he’s the best coach in the football at the moment,” Kolarov added.

“As players we can improve and we need to win more games but we are just at the beginning of a journey and I think we’ll get better and better.” Guardiola said finishing first was too far for City this season after the Everton hammering but former Barcelona and Spain striker David Villa has also backed him to overcome teething troubles and turn around the fortunes.

Having enjoyed great success with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Guardiola was brought in by City to take the club into the European elite.

Villa, who now plays in Major League Soccer with New York City FC, kept faith with the manager under whom he won the Spanish league twice and the 2011 Champions League with Barca.

“He has a difficult period right now but I believe he will change the situation,” Villa told Reuters television in an interview.

“(It) is normal to have a difficult period with the team, but he is great and I think he has a methodology and he has a very good coaching staff to change the situation and the future (at City) will be better for sure,” said the 35-year-old.

“Soccer is difficult in every country and I am so lucky that I was able to play for Guardiola. He is a great coach, for everyone who likes soccer. But in soccer it is difficult to win and he has almost always won. His statistics are amazing,” added Villa.

Guardiola won three Spanish league titles and two Champions Leagues with Barca and won the Bundesliga in all three seasons at Bayern.

Villa, who scored 59 goals for Spain in 97 appearances, credited Guardiola with making him into a better all-round player.

“I was lucky to train under him. When I arrived at Barcelona I had always played as a number nine and when I played with him he changed my position and my mentality and after that I think I was a better player.

“I was able to understand more about different positions) on the field and not only about scoring goals. He was great for my career,” he said.

Villa was voted MLS’s Most Valuable Player in 2016 after scoring 22 goals in 32 games for his New York club.

New York City FC share the same owners as Manchester City, the Abu Dhabi-owned City Football Group who also run Australian club Melbourne City and has a minority holding in Japanese J-League club Yokohama F-Marinos.

Meanwhile, City midfielder Yaya Toure has turned down a 520,000 pounds (Dh2.3 million) a week offer to play in China, his agent told Sky Sports.

Dimitri Seluk said the 33-year-old was targeted by Chinese club Jiangsu Suning in the winter transfer window. The BBC reported he had been contacted again in the current window.

“Yaya plays on another level. He wants to play at the highest level. He’s happy at Manchester City. Yaya likes football more than money,” Seluk was quoted as saying by Sky.

— Reuters