Manuel Pellegrini to welcome Vincent Kompany back to Manchester City squad

“One very important thing here in the Premier League is for the clubs to worry about their fans”, he said.

But that is all about to change.

Defeat by Leicester City last Saturday has left City six points adrift of the leaders and a point behind both Arsenal and Tottenham ahead of a potentially pivotal day in the title race.

The good news for the Citizens is that Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed that Vincent Kompany should be available for the game against Mauricio Pochettino’s side (via Sky Sports).

So will this be a watershed moment in the season?

“We’ll see what the starting XI is tomorrow [Saturday]”, he said.

He said: “It is impossible to know but he’s working without any problems and without fear so out would be bad luck if he has another injury”.

But Pellegrini concedes there may be no way to avoid another recurrence.

But Fabian Delph is set to be absent for up to seven weeks with an achilles injury while Bacary Sagna – who despite turning 33 on Sunday is in line for an extension to his £150,000-per-week contract to keep him at the club until 2018 – misses out with a sore knee. “He played 45 minutes in a friendly game for the Under-21s and I think he’s ready now to play”.

As for Pochettino, he believes his Spurs “lions” have what it takes to last the distance and claim a first league title since 1961.

Silva has been consistently plagued by problems since an injury in October, but looks fit enough to play against the Spurs, despite recently returning to his native Spain for treatment on yet another ankle problem. This is one of our challenges for the next period, the next three months’. “If we win every single game we can make it happen”.

And yet City under Pellegrini have operated with far greater advantage than Tottenham.

“It doesn’t matter, I always say in football, what you do in the past”.

City are six points behind Leicester and Kompany’s return represents a gamble given his injury problems this season – he has not played since an aborted 10-minute comeback on Boxing Day against Sunderland having first injured his calf during the worldwide break in November. Our philosophy is to build today strong teams for the future’.