Micah Richards is adamant Manchester City can return to being the dominant force of the last three years when Everton visit the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
The 2011/12 Premier League champions and 2011 FA Cup winners have lost their last two games, conceding six in the process as they threw away the lead twice at Aston Villa before being outclassed by Bayern Munich on Wednesday.
Full back Richards says the team are eager to play again as quickly as possible after the midweek game to right the wrongs of the last week.
“We want to play a game quickly and get it out of our system because we’re used to be being better than everyone else,” Richards told the club’s official website.
“Without being cocky we’re used to playing the nice football.
“We don’t like to lose two games back-to-back, we’ve got a winning mentality built into us now and a winning spirit, so to lose two on the bounce we have to put it right on Saturday.”
Everton will be no pushover however, having scored three themselves in both of their last two league games, winning three on the bounce to lie two points and three places above Manuel Pellegrini’s side.
This season’s only unbeaten team in the top flight also have an impressive recod against City. A win in September 2011 is the hosts’ only triumph over the Toffees in the last four seasons.
Richards admits they could face far easier opponents this weekend.
“It’s just our luck at the moment but we’re at home, we’ll give a good performance and hopefully get three points,” he said.
“We’ve had two disappointing results. Against Villa we played really well and didn’t get the points we wanted.”
On-loan Gareth Barry misses out for the visitors against his parent club, for whom David Silva will be pushing for a start after an impressive cameo against European champions Bayern.
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