Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany ruled out of West Ham game

Kompany suffered a calf injury in the midweek Champions League loss to Juventus and is also out of Tuesday’s Capital One Cup tie against Sunderland, but Aguero has recovered from his knee problem.

Kompany’s injury has allegedly prompted Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini to turn to the £31.5 million summer signing Otamendi, who is the second most expensive centre-back in Premier League history, in order to replace the injured captain. “We have Yaya Toure, Joe Hart, Otamendi or Silva – we have players who can assume the role of captain in the team”.

His manager went on to add, “Otamendi has been working with our team the last three weeks maybe not so many times as we would have liked but he’s an experienced player and he must have an option in this moment”.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing to come on and play the games I have – I’ve still only been here for just over a week, which is not a lot – so it’s probably a good thing to pace yourself and get to know your team-mates better and for them to know how I play”.

City have set formidable standards this season, with five successive wins opening up a four-point lead at the top of the table, and Pellegrini is hopeful they can be maintained in Kompany’s absence. We’re lucky as we have other leaders inside the team.

Record B#54million signing Kevin De Bruyne could also make his first City start but Pellegrini, speaking at his pre-match press conference, was non-committal.

Return: Sergio Aguero is fit to play…

But Sergio Aguero has handed Manuel Pellegrini a boost with the Argentine striker declared 100 percent fit for the tea-time kick off.

As quoted by the Manchester Evening News, he said: “We have started our Champions League campaign in a totally different way than the last few years, in-fact there’s no problem after this defeat”.

But he is wary of the threat posed by Slaven Bilic’s Hammers following their shock wins at Arsenal and Liverpool.

“It was not down to luck that they won those games”.