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Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini says title push begins in February

Manchester City recovered from their disappointing defeat at Premier League title rivals Arsenal with a ruthless 4-1 victory over a hapless Sunderland, but there were concerns as captain Vincent Kompany limped off on his comeback from injury. Is that something you welcome or do you think that he’d be the wrong fit for the club (considering the players he’d have at his disposal and the style of play he likes his teams to employ)?

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Louis van Gaal walked out of his press conference on Wednesday as speculation mounts about his position at Manchester United. There are a lot of aspects we have to improve. “And in four weeks we can again be back in that position”.

Three consecutive defeats leave the Wearside club in danger of losing touch with the clubs above them in the fight for Premier League survival. You can not be the captain of a team if you are not an important player.


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“The speculation started past year”, Pellegrini said.


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The Chilean put emphasis on not looking too far ahead, still needing to overtake the Gunners heading into the holiday fixture scramble. The next game is Sunderland and we must try to beat them here.

“It’s hard when you’re five points adrift, but what’s to say we can’t win the next two games?” City are known to come to life in the latter half of the season, with each of their last two title triumphs coming after they managed to grind out results in the latter half. The black cats are in danger of being marrooned at the bottom of the league table.

Manager Sam Allardyce believes his side need to rediscover that level of defence as they open the busy Christmas schedule at the Etihad. As they aim to frustrate, the Black Cats may give their wing-backs less licence to go forward and maybe even adopt a flat back five, while going forward they will hope that Fabio Borini can kick on after finally opening his scoring account for this term. I agree that we are not regularly playing (that) way but I don’t want to talk about the last game because we lost it. I think it will be a very important point of reflection to start being the team we normally are again.

Influential trio Younes Kaboul, Lee Cattermole and Seb Larsson are sidelined through injury.

Sunderland, meanwhile, will miss Jack Rodwell after the midfielder collected his fifth yellow card of the season, at Chelsea. City’s only injury concern lies in the absence of Samir Nasri who is battling a hamstring injury.

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Bony had noted his disappointment at being dropped in favour of Sergio Aguero for the Arsenal loss, but he responded by heading home his fourth goal in his last six appearances.

Sam Allardyce