Manuel Pellegrini hailed the professionalism of his Manchester City squad after it maintained its English Premier League title challenge with victory at Hull City on Saturday - despite playing with 10 men for 80 minutes.

City's 2-0 win at KC Stadium, combined with Chelsea's later 1-0 loss at Aston Villa, cut the London club's lead at the top to six points.

Liverpool and Arsenal could move above City into second place and cut Chelsea's lead to four points with wins on Sunday, but the three games Pellegrini's team holds in hand mean it will take the title if it keeps winning.

Most importantly for City at Hull on Saturday, though, was to stop losing after morale-sapping defeats to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup and Barcelona in the Champions League over the previous six days.

"It was a very good response in a very difficult week," Pellegrini told the club's website.

"We just lost against Wigan and against Barcelona and we needed to win today. Playing with one player less was very difficult.

"It was a good performance because we defended well with the ball and without the ball, and we also had three good chances to score. It was a very professional response from the players."

Goals from David Silva in the first half and Edin Dzeko in the final minute gave City the points that Pellegrini hopes will contribute to the club reclaiming the title it won in 2011-12 but relinquished to crosstown rival United last season.

The Chilean had a minor grumble about the consistency of the refereeing but said the red card shown to his captain Vincent Kompany in the 10th minute for hauling down Hull striker Nikica Jelavic was beyond dispute.

- Reuters

(China Daily 03/17/2014 page23)