Skipper Cesc Fabregas and Tomas Rosicky up the ante ahead of Sunday’s big clash at Eastlands

ARSENAL captain Cesc Fabregas believes the Gunners can prove that money can’t buy you success by beating Manchester City in Sunday’s showdown at Eastlands.

Fabregas returned to action with a goal in the 5-1 mauling of Shakhtar Donetsk at the Emirates on Tuesday and declared himself fit for the trip north.

And while Champions League qualification for the knockout stages looks assured, it is now the Premier League that takes centre stage this weekend.

“Manchester City are improving, they have a lot of money, they are buying good players and you expect them to be at the top level,” said Fabregas.

“It has always been difficult to go to Manchester City even before they had money and all these players.

“Everyone chooses their own politics and how to win. They have a lot of money and they are taking advantage of it and that’s it. It’s not our style but we respect everyone’s decision.

“It’s not just because they have money and lots of players, we would try to do it anyway. It is the football we want to play and our mentality is to go out and try to win every game.

“To do it against the richest club in the world like City or against the poorest club in the world doesn’t change it. We would do it anywhere,” said Fabregas, who also questioned whether City can foster the kind of team spirit that Arsenal and other clubs have after buying so many new players

“You cannot buy it [team spirit] in one year, you need a few years with everyone together and to get to know the players.

“You can’t do it in one season or two even but they are in a very good position”, admitted Fabregas. “They have all the ingredients to become a great club and we will have to fight hard against them.”

They were sentiments echoed by fellow midfielder Tomas Rosicky, although the Czech Republic international believes the time has come to stop talking and produce the kind of results in big games that have been missing for the past year.

“On Tuesday night we were clinical, that is what we were missing in games like against Chelsea,” said Rosicky. “That’s what Chelsea do, they have one chance and they kill you.

“We are happy that we are capable of doing that as we did against Shakhtar and every chance we got we scored. But Sunday is a massive game. We want to do better than against Chelsea and we hope we can show that.

“We cannot always say we are unlucky, it doesn’t work like that. It’s time to prove that we can win these games. It was the same old story against Chelsea but we have a feeling now we can do it.

“But all this is just words, we need to show it on the pitch now. We have to do that now.”

City are likely to boast a �75m strike force of Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and David Silva on Sunday, while their midfield trio of Nigel de Jong, Gareth Barry and James Milner came at a combined cost of �50m. But Rosicky is still confident Arsenal can prevail.

“I am not surprised [City are doing well],” he added. “They can buy almost who they want. They are similar to Chelsea, they are very solid at the back and it is difficult to create chances against them so we need a performance like we had on Tuesday again.

“What we have started at Arsenal we have to stick to, there is no point in changing. We always create chances in games, we have to take them.

“We haven’t discussed it but everybody realises how it is, and now we need to show that out where it matters on the pitch. We have a great opportunity to do that on Sunday.”