Manuel Pellegrini has denied punishing Vincent Kompany for playing for Belgium by dropping him, though Manchester City's manager admitted the captain was left out against Sevilla as he was not best suited to the game.
Kompany has not started for City since the international break as Pellegrini also named him as a substitute for Saturday’s 5-1 win over Bournemouth. This followed the 29-year-old playing 59 minutes of Belgium’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Israel. He was picked by his national team despite Pellegrini stating Kompany was not able to represent his country during the break due to a recent calf injury and the Israel match being effectively a dead rubber as Belgium had already sealed qualification for the European Championships.
Asked about his relationship with Kompany, Pellegrini admitted he did not believe his captain was the best option in central defence for Wednesday evening’s 2-1 victory over Sevilla in the Champions League.
“I’m not punishing Vincent, I have no problem. Every week I have to choose the starting XI best for that game, exactly the same for every player. I don’t have any problem with Vincent Kompany. The other players must wait. It’s exactly the same for the other players in the squad.”
Kompany suffered the calf injury in mid-September and Pellegrini said: “After one month or five weeks without playing or without training, you must be fit but you are not ready to play in important games.”
Kompany was brought on in the closing minutes against Sevilla. Although this might have displeased the Belgian, Pellegrini said: “It was because we had just scored to make it 2-1 and in the last minute they were making a lot of crosses inside the box, trying to locate their tall players, so I thought it was important Vincent was on the pitch.”
When Kompany came on Yaya Touré attempted to give the captain’s armband to him. Pellegrini prevented this happening by ensuring the armband remained with the Ivorian, though Kompany ended the match wearing it.
The manager stated that this occurred as Touré had believed he, rather than Kevin De Bruyne, was being replaced. "It's very easy to explain, but maybe it's not what you are expecting. The only thing is that Yaya was changing [COMING OFF]but it was Kevin De Bruyne," he said.
City are still without Sergio Agüero, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Fabian Delph and Gaël Clichy for Sunday's Manchester derby at Old Trafford.
City, the leaders, head United by two points and Pellegrini denied the outcome of the 170th edition of the fixture would decide who would be champions, though he did state “it is a game for six points”.
(Guardian service)
