Manchester City Can't Afford Another Champions League Slip Up - Vincent Kompany

Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany believes his side will now need to defeat rivals Roma and Bayern Munich in their remaining group games in order to clinch qualification from Champions League Group E.

Francesco Totti’s chip cancelled out Sergio Aguero’s third minute penalty to clinch a 1-1 draw at the Etihad Stadium for the Italian side and leave the Premier League champions with just one point from a possible six.

City have been eliminated at the group stage in two of their last three attempts in the competition, and the Belgian believes that in order to avoid a similar fate, City, who have a double header against CSKA Moscow next, must be flawless.


He said: “It could go any way really. Roma have matches against Bayern [Munich], one of the teams will lose points and that will leave us with an opportunity to gain points. You are probably looking at the Roma return game and the Bayern game and we really hope that we can get the six points. It’s imperative we win those games.

“Winning won’t just open up the door for second place but first place as well. I don’t think you can really aim for second place but if we get into contention to go to the next round we’ll be very close to first place.”
Kompany also refuted the idea that his team-mates feel more pressure when playing in Europe, adding his belief that the style of play is not as different to the Premier League as people suggest.

He continued:  “We got 15 points out of 18 last season. We’ve happened to fall into quite hard groups. This was tough - there is nothing more difficult or special than the Champions League.

“It’s actually very similar playing against Roma and the top five or six sides in the Premier League. You have to expect that they will wait, and they’ll be good at it, and they’ll keep possession and they’ll be good at it. It’s not normal to make a big drama, I recognise that we can be better but in any event we will take this on board because it’s clear that we can be better but I’m not going to beat myself up over it.”

Finally the centre-back defended the form of Yaya Toure, feeling that criticism of the Ivorian’s performances is unfounded, stating: “He’s done so much for this club and he’s always played well and I’m not sure I agree with the opinions [that he has been playing badly].”

“He’s always an important player for this team and when he does well the team does well. We’ve had a tough start but we’ve played some tough teams as well. It’s so early in the season and things will improve for everyone.”