Man City beats Sunderland 4-1; Kompany lasts 9 minutes

Four minutes later the home fans were on their feet again as Toure’s quick feet bamboozled Jordi Gomez and the midfielder brilliantly placed his left-foot shot into the bottom-right corner from 25 yards.

“There are worst things in life of course and I never forget that”.

Kompany cited the incident as “a bad day” for himself personally, but vowed to overcome the challenge put ahead of him that he describes as more frustrating than ‘any of the big injuries I’ve had’.

Pellegrini went as far as to suggest that City have to get used to playing without Kompany because of his increasingly poor fitness record. If the plan had been to restore Kompany to the starting 11 for Tuesday’s top-of-the-table clash at Leicester, it proved ill-conceived and the player now faces a third spell on the sidelines this season.

Kompany’s injury record is one of consistent calf issues, and without him City struggle to keep clean sheets. “They have got to release themselves from the fear they are showing”.

The Belgian has only started 37% of City’s fixtures in the current campaign, a percentage that is set to decrease.

“It’s very important to win”.

“The team performance was the most important”. And, this season, his reliability.

Manchester City’s club captain Vincent Kompany aired his frustrations regarding his fresh injury blow in an emotionally charged statement on his official Facebook page.

Played for both – Nedum Onuoha: The powerful defender began his career at Man City and became part of the first-team in 2004, going on to make 95 league appearances and score three goals. We are in all the competitions and we did that without a lot of important players.

Manchester City: Hart, Sagna, Otamendi (Kompany 61, Demichelis 71), Mangala, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Toure (Delph 62), De Bruyne, Silva, Sterling, Bony.

“‘Kun’ was on the bench because if we need him we can play in the second half but I think we have to play Leicester in three days and 10 games in January”, Pellegrini said.

A sublime backheel nearly set up a fourth for David Silva soon after half-time, before De Bruyne slotted in the goal his performance deserved. The £54m outlay for him was huge, but seems justified. How can I tell you how another person will think about the situation?

There was very little in the game at Arsenal until they fell behind to a wonderful strike, but conceding a very avoidable goal just seconds before half-time proved to be their ultimate downfall. “A central defender would be the first priority”, he said. Martin Demichelís, the other senior option at centre-back, has rarely looked convincing.