‘We Need Vincent Kompany Back’

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says his side have to improve defensively after losing 2-1 to Arsenal on Monday night.

Theo Walcott and Oliver Giroud scored to hand Arsenal a 2-1 win, with City’s defenders culpable in the absence of injured captain Vincent Kompany. And the manager believes that the sooner the Belgian returns, the better, as the club have only kept two clean sheets in their last 12 Premier League games.

“We must improve because we are conceding too many goals,” Pellegrini said. “We hope that Vincent will return soon. If we have Vincent, David [Silva] and Sergio [Aguero] playing normally every week then I suppose that we are going to continue being an important team for the fight for the title.”

Kompany has been out with a calf injury since September and City have now conceded 18 goals in the nine matches without him. Eliaquim Mangala started in the centre of defence alongside Aleksandar Kolarov on Monday and was widely criticised for his part in the second goal.

“I think in the last games we made a lot of collective mistakes. Today we improved in that sense and we made an individual mistake,” Pellegrini added.

“We dominated in possession and in options to score against a very good offensive team like Arsenal but of course if we concede two goals we must continue to try to think why.

“I understand that we must improve, especially in the games we are playing away, but we continue to be involved in all the competitions.