CITY City have proven their greatness, claims Kompany
VINCENT Kompany has rejected the idea that this City team has to win backto-back titles to prove its greatness.
And the City skipper says that even if they lose the race to the top with Liverpool, they will be able to look at themselves in the mirror and declare that they had done nothing wrong.
The Blues made it five wins on the bounce with a dominant 1-0 win at Bournemouth to keep the pressure on Liverpool.
But Kompany, back at the heart of defence at a critical stage of the season, dismissed the conventional wisdom that the current team needs consecutive title wins to be considered as one of the Premier League’s great teams.
“Reaching 100 points - good luck to anyone who wants to do it over again,” was his response to that suggestion.
“That stands in isolation as an incredible achievement. You can’t know until we’ve passed the time and we’ve played.
“We’re playing as well as we can, nothing is going to take away from that. If Liverpool end up being even better than us then that’s credit to Liverpool.
“I think we’re doing as good as a team can do but sometimes, if you want to talk about having back-to-back seasons, I’m sure that not a lot of teams had to face the sort of opposition we have now with Liverpool.
“Liverpool are having the best season I’ve ever known them to have since I’ve been following the Premier League so it’s a strong team and we just need to raise our level every time.”
But City are rising to the challenge, finishing another tough week with the Carabao Cup in the bag, two league wins and two clean sheets.
“It’s a squad of tremendous achievements already so it’s more about confirming you can reach those standards time and time again, that’s the hardest part,” said Kompany.
“But to get through this week with three clean sheets and three unbelievable results it’s as good as we could have hoped for.”
After an intense period of games, City now have a free week before the clash with Watford at the Etihad Stadium next Saturday.
Manager Pep Guardiola has given the players two days off, and Kompany feels that could be crucial.
“We’ve got a couple days off but it’s just really switching off mentally.
“We had to get over the Bournemouth game then we knew we could recover personnel and energy and that’s what the whole week is going to be about,” he added.