Jolean Lescott has said that Manchester City cannot always rely on their strikers to guarantee victories.

The former Everton defender stressed that City must get their defence right after conceding two goals to Napoli in the Champions League on Tuesday.

"It was explained to us by the manager that we can't expect to always score three or four goals to win every game," Lescott said. "Sometimes we need to be hard to beat. At Napoli we were disappointed with the two goals we conceded.

"If you look at our defensive record it's one of the best in the Premier League.

"It's a learning curve. But, obviously, to score more goals more people need to go forward so we need to make sure we are right at the back. If we need to, we are confident we can go man-for-man against most strikers and confident we can score against most teams."

City's Champions League performance has been in stark contrast to their efforts in the Premier League, where they embarked on a run of nine straight wins after crashing to Bayern Munich in September.

"We have to bounce straight back as we did after Bayern," Lescott added.

"The Premier League is a different kettle of fish, so it will be a different kind of task but we are confident in that.

"We haven't performed to the same heights in the Champions League as we have in the Premier League but we are confident going into most games."

Manchester City are currently five points clear at the top of the Premier League.