Manuel Pellegrini hints at more signings with Kevin De Bruyne ‘on radar’

Manuel Pellegrini’s side needed to make a statement of intent in their league opener and did so with the long-striding central midfielder Toure leaving the West Brom players floundering in his wake on numerous occasions with powerful runs and incisive passing. David Silva played a brilliant performance, especially in the first half, and not making any mistakes.

Pellegrini talked down the prospect of facing Mourinho’s Premier League champions, who only managed a point against Swansea on Saturday. I don’t think he was properly focused and we have spoken about that.

Within minutes they were into their slick passing rhythm with Silva and Toure dictating proceedings as the latter’s brace secured a deserved early two-goal lead – the first after a double-deflection off Silva and Baggies defender Craig Dawson.

“Sometimes you get judged on how you finish a season and I think until November I was having a good season but in the end it didn’t matter because we didn’t win anything”.

“If we can, we must have a stronger squad because we must play four competitions”, Pellegrini said.

“All of our technical players played very well”.

Sterling, replaced by Samir Nasri in the 74th minute, should have marked his debut with a goal but was thwarted by Boaz Myhill when put clean through by Fernandinho.

But Pelegrini insisted he was happy with the 20-year-old’s contribution after his first competitive action since his summer move from Liverpool.

Toure has said it’s unfair to place the blame on him when there are more elements than just one player culpable for City’s failure to defend their 2014 title.

“He had two clear chances to score”, added the City boss.

“I take responsibility for the way we set up”.

“We have something to prove”, Kompany told Sky Sports.

He is only a “human being” after all and he went onto say that he was unfairly criticised in the last campaign, not that he takes too much notice of the critics anyway!

“We knew it would be tough but we were disappointed with the way we went about it”.

He said: “We need to strengthen the axis of the team”. The chairman has been very good. “The top clubs, they don’t want to sell”.