By MARTIN BLACKBURN
MANCHESTER CITY fired out a title warning to Manchester United after cutting their lead at the top to just four points.
The Red Devils face a tricky trip to Tottenham today, knowing their neighbours are not giving up their title without a fight.
Two goals from Spanish magician David Silva proved enough to give City a comfortable 2-0 victory over Fulham.
It means Roberto Mancini’s side have won six of their seven league matches since losing the derby and assistant manager David Platt reiterated they will be waiting to pounce if United slip up.
Platt said: “All we can do is win our games. We’ve got 15 left, United have 16.
“Both teams will drop points between now and the end of the season, we have to make sure we keep winning.
“That way, if United do slip up then we are in a position to take advantage but we can’t do anything about them.
“We can only look after ourselves. Our focus is just on winning as many games as we can and getting the points.”
City woke up at 2-0 but wasted a hatful of chances to improve their goal difference.
And Platt said: “We are worse off but if we make up the four points, the goal difference will get made up.”
Silva took less than two minutes to pounce after Mark Schwarzer could only parry a long-range effort from Edin Dzeko into his path.
City’s No 2 said: “We scored after 90 seconds and thought it should settle us, we won’t have to unhook a defence that sits back. But we didn’t get going at full throttle in the first half.
“We kept the ball but didn’t create a great deal. Second half we were much better. We had chances to really put the game to bed.
“If we are going to continue to win football matches and continue to perform, we are going to need performances from everybody.
“The industry was good from the whole team today.”
Another boost was the return from the bench of title-winning hero Sergio Aguero.
He damaged his hamstring on New Year’s Day and Platt said: “He’s trained all week, he’s stepped things up. He’s been with the team for the last three days.
“It wasn’t a case of throwing him in, he’s got another full week now.”
Fulham boss Martin Jol admitted his gameplan was ruined by the early goal as his team suffered another disappointing away day.
The Dutchman said: “If you’re 1-0 down here after one and a half minutes, you’re your own worst enemies. We really could have done something to hurt them. With the early goal we were fearful for a bad game but we did OK.
“If you consider they scored their second in the 69th minute, we could have frustrated them. I felt we could have done a bit more and maybe scored the equaliser as they lost concentration.
“It doesn’t always help if you score early. That was probably too early for them.”
But Jol did admit it is hard for any team when they see the likes of Aguero and Samir Nasri coming off the bench in the second half.
He said: “I don’t even think you should talk about that sort of thing. I thought Aguero would start today and he didn’t, which was good.
“But they still have Carlos Tevez, who has 12 or 13 assists. He’s a fantastic player.”
Jol denied reports unsettled Norwegian defender John Arne Riise had refused to travel north and said he had simply been left out.
He said: “John’s a fantastic boy, he will never come up with that sort of c**p. John stayed at Motspur Park to do an extra session because I promised him if he’s not starting, he could stay there.
“Kieran Richardson has probably been our best player the last couple of matches.
“That was the thing. After the Liverpool game I wasn’t happy when Stewart Downing scored his first goal since joining Liverpool and John was playing against him.
“I tried to do something to freshen things up or to challenge John to play better.
“He wants to play but I’ve got three left-backs now and Kieran probably did the best job out of the three.”
