"It's Part Of Being A Defender" Insists Kompany
Monday, 29th Sep 2014 08:25

After a complete nightmare at Hull on Saturday,City defender Mangala will be lifted to hear he certainly still as the support of his team mates. Mangala lived up to his £32 million price tag against Chelsea last weekend but at the KC Stadium in the Premier League on Saturday, he headed into his own net and then conceded a clumsy penalty to cost his side an early two-goal lead.

City captain Vincent Kompany was quick to defend his fellow defender. "It's part of being a defender. If your children ever choose to play football, sign them up as strikers and then this won't happen to them," the Belgian told teamtalk.com.

"As defenders, we have to deal with this, it's part of the job. But I always look at the reaction and we saw it from him in the second half. It could have been so dangerous because it had gone to 2-2, but he just got on with it and stood up to the task.

"The rest of the game, he played well, he stayed professional. You could not have asked for more.

"Sometimes you get half an hour like this, but you still have an hour to play well. That's all you can do, it's always about the next minutes and that's how I think about it. I've seen in him a great reaction and, in the second half, he was spot on.

"There's no harm done. Sometimes you say, 'Get these things out of the way early'. As a defender, it's a bit like being a goalkeeper, you kind of know these things will happen to you. You just never know when."

City's Argentinian defender Zabaleta was also quick to defend Mangala;“I said to him after the game ‘Congratulations for the game’,” he told the Manchester Evening News. “Sometimes you can make mistakes, but he showed real character and personality in the second half to go onto the field and do well for the team.

“Everyone makes mistakes. I did it in my last game against Chelsea, getting sent off and letting the team down because then we only had ten men. It was probably the same for him at Hull.

“He scored an own goal and gave away a penalty but then he did really well to keep playing well and he was fantastic in the second half.”

Zabaleta also made a good point that we should not be worried about one performance but be surprised at what a good start Managala as made in a new league;“This is the Premier League and it is always tough at the beginning, even for big lads like him,” said Zabaleta. “It’s a very physical league with a lot of contact and some teams play a direct style.

“That’s why it’s the best league in the world — you have to be prepared to face teams that play good football but you also have to be ready for different styles of football.”

Photo: Action Images

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