Toure challenges City teammates

Toure challenges City teammates

Published Sep. 23, 2012 9:15 a.m. ET

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure wants his side to go through the whole season without dropping a point at home in the Premier League.

Roberto Mancini's men have won both their games at the Etihad Stadium this term but face a tough test to extend their perfect record against Arsenal on Sunday.

Toure feels it is crucial for City to beat the Gunners and strike a psychological blow against one of their main rivals in the title race.

"For us to be successful we need to win at home," he said in the Daily Star Sunday.

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"A championship team needs to be invincible in its own stadium and that is the challenge - zero points dropped in an entire season.

"This match is worth four points - three in the table and one extra because of the level of the rival.

"Facing Arsenal is not easy and I am convinced they will cause us more problems than Real Madrid did this week.

"I have watched Arsenal this season and they are playing at a really high level.

"For us it's going to be a hard test - but to repeat our title win we need to make our stadium impossible for our rivals.

"It's a big game for us because we have some questions to answer.

"We need to show we are better than them and take three points away from one of our title rivals."

Arsenal's title chances were widely written off following the summer departures of Robin van Persie and Alex Song, but their new players have impressed and Toure is ready for a tough game.

He said: "Van Persie and Song were important players for Arsenal but I believe the reinforcements they brought in this summer have made up for them going.

"Now they are more compact, more solid and they don't depend exclusively on Van Persie for goals.

"I have seen a lot of [Olivier] Giroud and he has a lot of quality. But I'm going to make sure he has no luck in front of goal in this game."

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