In an exclusive interview for 888sport.com Martin Keown insists Manchester City must get their captain Vincent Kompany “100% fit” if he’s to play any role in their forthcoming title bid.
Kompany dramatically lost his place last season after struggling to reach the exceptional standards he set the previous year and speaking as a fellow member of the centre-back union the Gunners’ ‘Invincible’ is sympathetic as to why.
“For me he was always playing with a lot of injuries last season. He’s a big unit and he was having a problem with over-committing and then not being able to recover. He has proven that he has to be 100% fit to play. If he’s not it’s quite difficult for him to get around the pitch and play in a fashion that he did the previous season. Then he seemed a yard quicker, much more mobile and happier.”
Yet the Gunners legend insists the injuries are not entirely to blame for the Belgian’s 2014/15 woes.
“When he came back he was guilty of trying to do too much and doing other people’s jobs. When you come back from injury you can’t do that: You have to sit in and pull people around you. Your mere presence is enough. He didn’t do that and became a problem in the back four so they had to take him out.”
Read the full interview – including Keown’s assessment of this Sunday’s Community Shield – here.