The Ivorian netted the winning goal as Manchester City triumphed and his manager was keen to credit his desire in a week where his future at the club came into question again

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has praised Yaya Toure’s character after the midfielder scored the winning goal in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Swansea at the Etihad Stadium.

The visitors gave City problems early on and took the lead through Wilfried Bony, but Stevan Jovetic equalised before Toure’s superb run and shot helped clinch the three points.

The Ivorian’s future at the club remains a topic of continued speculation, and in midweek he stated that “you can never close the door on a big club” when asked about possible interest from Paris Saint-Germain.

But Pellegrini was keen to credit his overall display and also his desire to complete the match despite feeling fatigue in the closing stages.

He told journalists post-match: “He [Toure] was tired but he had the personality and the character to continue playing to the end, and I think he played very well. It’s not possible for Yaya to score the amount of goals that he did last season, it’s important for him to play well, and I felt he played very well today.

“I think it’s always important for him to score, but I think that we played very well today, we had the trust to continue playing, and we had plenty of chances to score against a very good team.”

The former Real Madrid boss also looked ahead to the crunch Champions League encounter with Bayern Munich on Tuesday night, and stated that although he was content with the victory, he is hopeful the team can eradicate any errors before the Germans arrive.

He added: “We have to add more points, we have 21 points to play for in December and it’s important to win as many points as we can. The trust of the team is better going into the match against Bayern Munich.

“We work every day in training on defending and hopefully on Tuesday we won’t make the mistakes we made today.”