Manuel Pellegrini
Reuters

Manuel Pellegrini is confident Manchester City can stem their poor away run soon and it will not prevent the club from mounting a title challenge this season.

The Citizens are yet to register a win on the road in the Premier League this term and suffered their second away defeat on Saturday, after squandering the lead twice against Aston Villa, who took advantage of City's lax defending and won the game at Villa Park 3-2.

The result follows a 3-2 defeat at Cardiff and a stalemate at Stoke. The Blues are now five points behind leaders Arsenal in the league table but Pellegrini insists the club has enough time to raise their game and is convinced they will be in the running for honours, come the end of the season.

"I think the Premier League is very regular. I don't know how many teams will be fighting for the title because we are just starting. It is a very tough league and the differences between teams are not too much. We are just starting working and we hope that we will improve in the future so we can win the games we must win," Pellegrini stressed.

"We are not thinking about the title at this moment. We are thinking about winning the most amount of matches. In the Premier League the differences can be very small. So we can't know what will happen in the month of May but, playing the way we are playing, I am absolutely sure that we are going to be fighting for the league," the Chilean tactician added.

After the match against Villa, Pellegrini had stated that City deserved to win the game but failed to keep their cool during a crucial period.

"We played very well and deserved to win, but in five minutes (when Villa scored twice to go 3-2 up) we threw away everything good we did in the rest of the match. The way we lost this game was incredible. We led twice, and we had control of the game," the manager pointed out.

City's next away fixture in the Premier League is against West Ham United at Upton Park, after the international break.