Kompany keen to avoid late title drama
MANCHESTER CITY captain Vincent Kompany has applauded his side’s ruthlessness as they aim to take another step closer to their third Premier League title in seven seasons against Chelsea today.
Pep Guardiola’s side have lost only one league match this season and could become champions by winning five more games, in stark contrast to their other nail-biting triumphs on the final day.
In 2012, Sergio Aguero scored a stoppage-time winner against Queens Park Rangers, while Kompany scored in a 2-0 win against West Ham two years later to see off Liverpool’s challenge by two points.
The Belgian is grateful that City are set to avoid any more late drama, while refusing to take their foot off the gas despite being red-hot title favourites.
He said: ‘There’s a great saying in Belgium: “A donkey doesn’t hit himself with the same stone twice”. It means you have to learn from your mistakes. I can’t emphasise it enough.
‘When we won the league on goal difference in 2012, I said: “Please, never like this again”. In 2016, we beat Liverpool in the League Cup final and a few days later went to Anfield and got battered (3-0) in the league.
‘We want to win in style this season. There is so much to do. I was asking in the shower at Arsenal: “How many games left, lads?” and nobody knew.’
Kompany, 31, knows if City can retain the title — something that has not happened in the Premier League since Manchester United did it in 2009 — they will have an argument to be considered one of English football’s greatest sides.
‘If we do win the title this season, I will be the first one in the dressing room to put the emphasis on how we approach pre-season training,’ he said. ‘I will be talking about how people come back from their holidays, how they approach training. Everything.
‘I have seen it before when we have won the title and when you come back there is an edge missing. That’s why it is so difficult to retain titles.
‘That’s why every team that has done it in the past has been a special team — and why we have to be special this time.
‘If we win the league — and I am saying “if” out of respect to the other teams — then watch me in preseason. I will be looking in people’s eyes to see if they have the same intensity.
‘In the past, when we have won the League title, the intensity has been missing the following season.’