Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was full of praise for his players after last night's 2-1 win against Manchester City.
The Gunners moved to just two points from leaders Leicester City after a hard-fought win against Manuel Pellegrini's side.
And the Frenchman, who ruled out Chile's Alexis Sanchez for the busy Christmas period, says his team showed moments of brilliance to edge past the Citizens.
"It is a game you come out very happy as we have shown all types of ingredients you need in these big games," Wenger said.
"Good organisation, strong solidarity, high work rate, moments of brilliance and moments where we needed to hang on because that is important as well and overall because we could kill the game and we had the chances to do it.
"When they came back to 2-1 we were a bit under pressure but I believe it was very intense for both teams. You had times where you had players on the ground at both sides of the pitch because of that total commitment.
"[But] we are more mature to defend. We have moments. Today we turned between playing very high and very deep. When we were playing very deep we were not too much in trouble.
"They have players who can tuck in like De Bruyne and Silva who you do not want to get on the ball in the last 30 yards and overall we did that tactically well.
"It is too early to say to we can win the league but it strengthens our belief. You come out and realise you have earned your right to win these games and for us it is important.
"We have to be ready to fight like that in every single game and you do that quite [often]. It is quite interesting on my side there is
"[Alexis Sanchez?] I think he will be back January 10. Christmas period - you can't count him.
"He had had a slight one [setback two days ago] yet but he planned to be on the bench tonight but he is so keen he got a little bit of a pain and we didn't take a gamble."
