How Man City's win over Bournemouth might just prove to be the difference in the Premier League title race

Man City's gritty win over Bournemouth demonstrated the elite mentality that could prove to be the difference in the title race. That's the belief of former Man City Women star Izzy Christiansen, who believes Pep Guardiola could look back at the 1-0 victory on the south coast as one of the most important results of the season, should they retain their title.

City took the lead in the first half at the Vitality Stadium through Phil Foden, who got himself on the end of a parried Erling Haaland effort, but they couldn't kill the Cherries off, who rallied to ensure Guardiola's side didn't have it all their own way. In fact, Bournemouth were the better side for periods of the second half and while they asked questions of City, they couldn't find a breakthrough.

The three points ensured City moved to within a point of Liverpool, who are currently sitting at the Premier League summit, while Arsenal are doing enough to make it a three-horse race at the top of the table. City play both teams next month and the results of those games promise to have huge implications, one way or another.

But the three points they claimed at Bournemouth are just as valuable to their cause, believes Christiansen.

"It's going to be fascinating to see how it unfolds and no one knows how it will," Christiansen said on Sky Sports. "There are so many twists and turns yet.

"If you look at games like today with Man City and go, tactically today they figured it out. They found the solutions against a team in Bournemouth, who are in the bottom half of the table and playing some exciting football but there's still quite a lot to tweak. Man City could easily have taken that game a little bit lightly or easily conceded in the last five or 10 minutes when Bournemouth really turned on the gas.

"But those are the games where you look back on and go 'that was important, that was really important because we were up against it in the last 10 or 15 minutes and Bournemouth were excellent'. We think sometimes it's going to come down to head to heads between those three and it does, but this is the bread and butter, this is the consistency of a title winning team. It will go right to the wire, surely."