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Manchester City may be only 90 minutes from wrapping up the Premier League but Joleon Lescott has urged the club's fans to "not get carried away" in the run‑up to the title decider this weekend.
City face a Queens Park Rangers side led by their former manager Mark Hughes on Sunday. Their superior goal difference dictates that, whatever Manchester United do at Sunderland, a win will make Robert Mancini's team champions.
"I'd say to our fans, keep a lid on it this week and let's not get carried away. If it happens on Sunday, they can celebrate then," said the City centre‑half. "It's in our hands but there's another vital game to go." Lescott knows that a stumble would render City's hard‑fought win at Newcastle United last Sunday irrelevant.
"It's a massive game at the weekend. It's not all over yet but, if we could close the title out, it would be unreal. You dream of these things. I never once thought: 'Yeah, I'm bound to win the Premier League.' But it was always in my mind. It will be crazy days if we win it. We've been nervous at times this season but we deserve to be up there.
"When I first arrived here [from Everton in 2009] it was more hope that we could win the league rather than real belief. But we've developed and got more players and are all starting to really believe. It's developed over a period of time. It's been a growing feeling."
Now Hughes, the man who signed Lescott for City, and a QPR team battling relegation, stand in the way of Mancini's ambitions. "There's a bit of irony in that it's him we're up against," said Lescott. "Mark Hughes was a great boss and he was very good to me."
When City lost 1-0 at Arsenal in early April the title looked Old Trafford bound but five successive victories, including a home win against Manchester United, have altered the Premier League landscape.
"It would have been crazy to have given it up after Arsenal," said Lescott. "That would have been silly. There was no chance of that happening. It would have been criminal. I don't think there was any way that could happen here because of the attitudes of the players. At this level of our careers we are not going to just give up when we get close to something like this. The lads I play with have a never-say-die attitude."
Yaya Touré, who scored the decisive goals at Newcastle to put the title within City's reach, said: "Always I have said this club can go far, this club can win something. Last year we won the FA Cup and we have to continue like that and next week try to win the game against QPR.
"We know it's going to be tough but I believe in this team, I believe in the players we have. We have some fantastic players. I have always said I came to this club to make history even if some people said I came for different things. I am going to keep telling them I came to this club to make history and that is my first objective, to help make the club into a successful football club." Jonas Gutierrez, Newcastle's Argentinian winger, spoke to his compatriots Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero and Pablo Zabaleta after City's triumph on Tyneside. "It's still going to be hard for them because QPR will make it hard," said Gutierrez. "It just depends on Manchester City now. They know what might happen if they don't win, so I think they are going to be really focused."
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