The bigger the game the better for fit-again Vincent Kompany

Vincent Kompany, a player who has endured an estimated 34 injury lay-offs in his eight years as a Manchester City player, left the Etihad Stadium on Sunday evening with a broad grin on his face, an indication of his improving physical condition rather than the near-hour grilling he and his team mates had endured following a 1-1 draw with Southampton.

That disappointing performance from Pep Guardiola’s team not only extended their current winless run to five games but also earned the playing staff 50-plus minutes locked in the dressing room as their manager aired his feelings.

But for Kompany, 30, the game may prove to have had far greater significance representing, as it did, his first Premier League start since April and, he and his club can only hope, an end to a wretched run of injuries which has seen him suffer 30 of those 34 absences since 2012.

“It’s hard to come back, obviously. But I know what I have to do to be back at my level,” he said. “I’m always confident. The last thing I want to do, when you’ve lived through your career as a footballer, is give up. If I give up then I know the outcome. But if I carry on, there’s always a chance I’ll relive those moments. So my motivation can never be in doubt.

“The one thing you learn is to not speculate too much or look too far into the future. I’m just happy this game went well, physically, and I’m happy I can look forward to being in contention for another game. I really know there are some steps to build up now. First of all for me is being back to being really healthy for the team, and then, hopefully, it’s having a place in the team that makes a difference for the lads.

“I think I thrive on the challenge. God knows what would have happened if I’d never had those injuries but I need to get something that makes me stronger out of it, something different from other players, and that’s what I believe in.

“Okay, that’s been my reality for the last few years now, but motivation only keeps going up, because I feel like I belong on the pitch and I deserve to have good moments because of how I’ve worked every single day to come back. But I trust myself, incredibly.”

That trust, and optimism, has been increased due to the fact Kompany’s latest injury problem has been related to his groin, rather than the hamstring and, particularly, calf problems that have blighted his career in what should be his peak years.

Having twice led City to the Premier League title, the Belgian international should have been basking in the spotlight as one of English, and European, football’s leading lights. Instead, he has beaten a well-worn path to the City treatment room and managed to make 30-plus league appearances in just three of the eight seasons he has completed in the Premier League. The delicate state of affairs surrounding Kompany’s fitness led to a bizarre situation after last week’s 4-0 Champions League humiliation in Barcelona.

Kompany’s international and club team mate Kevin De Bruyne told Belgian media his colleague was fully-fit and left out of the game by Guardiola, only for the manager to claim later in the week he had wanted to select the defender only for the player to withdraw due to the mental scars of his injury battles.

The truth, Kompany explained, is far more straightforward and revolves around an agreement with the City medical staff he would be honest about his fitness and not play unless completely ready and able - a fact reflected when he came off after 78 minutes on Sunday.

“My situation is very simple,” he said. “I think you can make a mistake to over-analyse things. I’ve been out for six months. I’ve had to make one commitment to the medical staff, which was that I’d be honest towards them with my feelings, and that I would listen to them when they made a decision.

“I told them how I felt the day before the game and they made the decision for me. That I wanted to play, of course, that wasn’t even in doubt, but I’ve just made this commitment to listen to them a little bit more.

“Maybe another day I would never have gone off after 70 minutes like I did today, but it’s part of the bargain, let’s put it that way, and it’s for the best.”

Kompany’s mature approach extends to his response to the dressing room “lock-in” which Guardiola inflicted on the squad after that Southampton draw. “We’re adults, we’re all highly ambitious and we realise we have to move as a unit and behave as a team and I think anything in the dressing-room stays in the dressing-room,” he said.

“But I think it’s positive to have some sort of maturity in the team, to recognise we need to move forward, but to have a positive spirit and, as I said, these kind of results sometimes give you something extra and that’s what we need to get out of it.”

Such positivity will be needed at Old Trafford tomorrow when League Cup holders City face a Manchester derby in a competition which Jose Mourinho already stated is fourth on the list of United’s priorities for the season.

“It’s just physically impossible for me to play down a derby,” said Kompany. “But the more they say this is the fourth competition, the better it is for us.

“Am I looking forward to Wednesday? Come on. Always. The bigger the game, the better. That’s how I’ve always approached it in my career and I will for the rest of my career. Those games are what you play for.

“I feel good, and I’m very humble about it. My role is to be available as many times as I can, and then the rest I feel confident that when I’m available for a longer period of time, I will be a player that’s very useful to the team, but everything in time.”