Manuel Pellegrini defends decision to drop Kompany

Pellegrini: ‘It was important to refresh the team mentally and physically’




Manuel Pellegrini attempted to play down dropping Vincent Kompany for Manchester City’s 2-0 win over Leicester City at the Etihad Stadium but the manager refused to confirm he will be reinstated for the champions’ next game, at Burnley on Saturday week.


Kompany was one of five players left out from the XI that lost 2-1 at Liverpool on Sunday. While Pablo Zabaleta, Fernandinho, Samir Nasri and Edin Dzeko were also not in the team that gave City a first win in three matches, Pellegrini stated all of the changes were to freshen his side up after also losing 2-1 to Barcelona in the Champions League last-16 opening leg last week.

Asked why the Chilean dropped Kompany, he said: “For the same reason that Pablo Zabaleta, Fernandinho, Samir Nasri, Edin Dzeko weren’t playing. I think it was important to refresh the team mentally and physically after two difficult games. We have the squad we want so it was a good moment to refresh the team.”

Pellegrini would not say if Kompany, who was left out for the first time in his City career due to form rather than injury, would start at Burnley. “Tomorrow we will work Thursday and Friday, we will have the weekend free. On Monday we are going to start working for the next game,” he said, before stating it was not a hard decision. “It was not difficult because we need to refresh the team today and I decide thinking about a lot of things which was the best team for today.”

How had Kompany received the decision? “Very well. Without any problems,” the manager said.

City won through a David Silva 45th-minute strike and James Milner’s 88th-minute finish and Pellegrini declared himself pleased at the display. “I think always when you don’t have the result you need the next game is very difficult,” he said. “That is why today the most important thing was to win the three points. After that we did a normal game. We dominate the game and had a good possession of the ball.

“Maybe Leicester is at the bottom but if you see their last three results, they drew 2-2 against Liverpool, against Everton and were very unlucky not to draw against Arsenal. It was important for our team to keep a clean sheet and try and dominate the game from the beginning. Maybe we scored too late the second goal but I think it was a normal game.”

As Chelsea beat West Ham United the London club can still stretch their lead to eight points by winning their game in hand but Pellegrini insisted he is only concentrating on his own side.

“We are not thinking about Chelsea,” he said. “We are thinking about our team, we must try to win our games. We can do nothing about what Chelsea do. It is important for us to try and improve our performances and try and win our games and we will see at the end of the season if Chelsea drop points or not.”



By Jamie Jackson, Guardian