Vincent Kompany admitted that Manchester City’s biggest weakness is its all-out attacking style. While City has scored an astonishing 110 goals in all competitions this season,its backline has come under scrutiny, the City captain said.
“Our weakness is our strength, like any other squad that are so dominant and so attacking,” Kompany told ESPNFC. “We play withtwo strikers and two wingers who are virtually strikers and one of our midfield players – which we only have two of – is also virtually a striker [Yaya Toure]. Ourfullbacks are pushing up all the time, ultimately out of a team of 11 players we have six or seven who are always involved in the attack and it just means that there is a lot of ground to cover whenyou lose the ball. It’s a risk but it’s a style of playing that suits us at the moment.”
The Belgium international added: “Complacency is our biggest enemy, it’s very simple. Wehave six or seven players thinking offensive, and that just means we have to be super-aggressive to recover the ball quickly. When we don’t have the ball, ultimately we’re not as good anymore, so Ithink a good strength is to know how you function. This is how we function, so there’s no excuses for us not to look to get the ball back very quickly.”
Coach ManuelPellegrini, meanwhile, disagreed with this assessment, pointing to the fact that City has the joint-third lowest tally of goals conceded in the Premier League, 25. “Maybe you don’t believe mebut we work more in defending than attacking because, of course, it is difficult to when you have to defend with less defenders [because of the commitment to going forward]. I think it is veryimportant to know how to do it and that’s the way we work here. For the moment, we will continue in the same way. Maybe it’s my opinion and I am wrong, but I think this team defends very well.”