Brazilian bulldozer forward Hulk said on Saturday that his side Shanghai SIPG must be better than last year if they are to retain their Chinese Super League (CSL) title.

SIPG, who also boast the 60-million-euro Brazilian Oscar, ended Guangzhou Evergrande's seven-year stranglehold on the CSL in November when they won their first league crown.

Ahead of the new season, which begins in March, the 32-year-old Hulk said: "We definitely want to keep this championship in 2019 but it needs more effort every day.

"Hopefully we can be better than last year."

Hulk and his team-mates are back in training after a break and the former Brazil international said the heat was on with the new campaign just five weeks away.

"We have had a long holiday. We won the championship last year and we felt a lot of pressure after we came here because we only have one month to prepare," he said, speaking at the club's training ground.

"The next thing we can do is to 100 percent concentrate, fully adjust and practise well every day per the instructions of the head coach (Vitor Pereira)."

Hulk, who joined SIPG from Zenit St. Petersburg in Russia in July 2016 for a reported 58 million euros, sat out training on Saturday but did gym work and said that he had no injury concerns.