Pellegrini: Never mind points, feel position

Monday’s 2-1 home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur came as a setback, but the manager revealed that the tears of his 12-year-old son Paulo forced him to put the result into context. Jeff Schlupp and Matty James, however, remain out with hamstring and knee injuries respectively.

City’s clean sheet against Leicester was their first this season without injured captain Vincent Kompany, who could be out for another month with calf trouble.

Kompany lasted just nine minutes against Sunderland on Boxing Day when he returned from his previous lay-off due to calf injury.

Midfielder Fabian Delph and left-back Gael Clichy are both back in contention after missing Tuesday’s goalless draw at Leicester.

“We are going to win the title if we don’t depend on just one player”, he said.

“But we have lots of reasons to be happy. It is very nice, we want more and are ambitious and have a strong mentality in the dressing room”.

Manuel Pellegrini has admitted that Manchester City’s inconsistency in the first half of the campaign would have ruled them out of the English Premier League title race in any ordinary season.

“I hope this is the part of the season for Kompany and the second part he will be fit, but if not, of course, we must try to do everything we can do to try to know why. Always the best position is to be top of the table but I think that this is a special season in the Premier League”, he told reporters.

Mauricio Pochettino’s men have only lost two Premier League games this season and are now in fourth place in the table, just four points behind leaders Arsenal heading into the new year. “They had some small problems in the last game”.

The Daily Mirror is reporting that Demari Gray has chose to make the move to the Premier League side and will join the club for a reported fee of £3.75 million. They are in a good moment and playing well.

Sergio Aguero has only failed to score against five of the 28 different Premier League teams that he has faced in the competition – Watford (one appearance) are one of these sides.

Despite the clear defensive struggles, Pellegrini insists that he is happy with the players at his disposal and he is not planning to bring in any cover in this transfer window, with City 11/1 with Titanbet to win the Champions League this season.