Manuel Pellegrini has said he is frustrated that Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Agüero have not been able to play together more this season, though the Manchester City manager is happy at how his squad has dealt with their absences. Despite the trio’s injuries City are the Premier League leaders, qualified for the Champions League knockout stage with two games remaining and are in the Capital One Cup semi-finals.
While Silva is fit again, Kompany and Agüero are injured. The captain has his third calf injury this year and has suffered nine different problems. Agüero has hurt a foot, which is his fourth different injury or illness, the same number suffered by Silva. The Spaniard’s recent ankle injury caused him to miss nine matches.
Asked if the inability of these three key players consistently to play together frustrates him, Pellegrini said: “Well, in important teams maybe if you take out a [Lionel] Messi for three months of the season or Cristiano [Ronaldo] for three months of the season, of course I think those teams are not the same. If you take two or three of them it’s more difficult to do it, which is why I’m so happy with the squad in this season.”
City, who travel to Stoke City on Saturday, lead Leicester City on goal difference and have only an outside chance of topping their Champions League group. But Pellegrini would not be drawn on whether the side might have a clear lead in the title race and would have already won their group but for the absences of Silva, Agüero and Kompany.
“Well, you never know, it’s impossible to know but of course when you have those players not playing every game, not only because they are injured but because when they return from an injury they need two or three games to return to their normal performance, [it is more difficult],” he said. “You can never know. I am so happy with the position we are in at this moment in every competition.”
Despite City suffering 36 separate injuries or illnesses to players this season Pellegrini denied he would strengthen in the January window. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “The squad for this year is ready. We are not thinking to replace [anyone] for the amount of injuries we’ve had. Really, we are not thinking about that.”
Pellegrini is also adamant that starting the season with only Agüero and Wilfried Bony as frontline strikers has not left the squad short. “When we decided, I said, ‘We are OK with this because we have Kelechi Iheanacho.’ Young players are maybe not 100% ready to play every game but I think he is a very good substitute and the games he is playing he is doing very well,” he said. “I am not concerned about why we didn’t bring in another player because we have Kelechi, we have Raheem [Sterling] who can also play forward, so no problem.”
Last January, though, City spent £30m on buying Bony from Swansea City. “It was a decision last year because we had the three players injured a lot of times before, so we didn’t want to take the risk to finish the year in the same way,” said Pellegrini. “But that year Kelechi was one year younger so he was not the player he is today. We had Kun Agüero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic. Jovetic and Kun had a lot of injuries in the first half of the season and so did Dzeko. That’s why we decided to bring in Bony. I think in this case, the fourth striker should be Kelechi.
“We are at the moment in a very good position and I don’t think anybody can have any doubts about the strength of our squad. It is important that, when you don’t have the important players, you have a squad that is able to play the same way and I think that is what we are doing so far.”
