Who will lead the table-toppers against their cross-city rivals?
Manuel Pellegrini intervened, during City’s 2-1 win over Sevilla last night, to prevent Yaya Toure from handing over the captain’s arm-band to Vincent Kompany.
The Belgian had been benched, according to Pellegrini, to keep him fresh ahead of a fixture glut in the coming weeks and months.
However, it has been widely reported that the City manager was displeased with his club captain for turning out for his country when he was only just back from a term on the sidelines.
With Belgian in their starting line-up, this season, City have conceded a goal every 525 minutes. Without him, they have conceded once every 56 minutes.
Last night, with Kompany set to replace goalscorer Kevin de Bruyne, Toure jogged over to the sideline to present the defender with the arm-band.
Pellegrini stepped in and took the arm-band off Kompany and hand it back to Toure. Post-match, the Chilean explained:
“The confusion was that Yaya was not the substitute, it was (Kevin) De Bruyne not Yaya. That was the confusion.”
As for whether Kompany would feature in the City defence for Sunday’s Manchester derby, Pellegrini gave little away.
“Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala are playing very well,” he said. “They played well against Bournemouth and Newcastle. We won 5-1 and 6-1.
“Vincent is coming back from a long injury after a month out so it was a risk to give him this responsibility in an important game. Every game and every week I try to pick the team that I think in this moment are ready or better to play.”
Kompany’s absence would surely please United supporters.
