Manuel pellegrini believes manchester city are in a competitive position

City will still be without injured midfielder Samir Nasri at Vicarage Road, while captain Vincent Kompanyis at least three weeks away from a return as he recovers from the calf injury that has blighted his season.

City drew 0-0 at Leicester on Tuesday, their first clean sheet of the season without the Belgium defender.

Kompany has missed more than half of City’s league games this season, playing in nine out of the 19, and hobbled off within 10 minutes of appearing as a second half substitute against Sunderland.

“It is the same calf but a different part”, Pellegrini said afterwards.

“I can only say well done to our players and our fans are unbelievable, they support us and they push us”.

“One of the good things about tonight is that we kept a clean sheet after many games without. We’ve had two tough games in three days and three wins out of three now over a tough Christmas period so we couldn’t be happier, we go into the New Year buzzing and hopefully we’ll continue it at Everton next week”.

Having dropped five points in their last three outings, and without an away win since September, City need to kick-off the New Year in style at Watford today.

Otamendi arrived at City in August and can already see Kompany’s importance to the side, but said Manuel Pellegrini had the depth to cover his absence. “But we’re in a good position and the two teams above us (Arsenal and Leicester) deserve to be there”.

“As for ourselves, I feel we are in a good position”.

“I think we showed a very good performance and after the Liverpool defeat, we’ve played so well”.

We were very solid and defended well against a hard team.

Manchester City skipper Kompany – who has started just eight Premier League games this term – has been sidelined with a recurrence of a long-standing calf problem and may not play again until February. If you ask me are we happy so far?

“I said when we lost to Arsenal that we improve a lot”.

Despite that poor run, Pellegrini will allow his players to see in 2016 with their friends and families – but wants them all in bed by 1am.

“We’re a very good team, we’ve proven that at the back end of last season and we’re halfway through this season and we’re still up there in the mix”.