Yaya Toure hopes Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has found a recipe for attacking success ahead of Saturday's visit to Tottenham.
|||Yaya Toure hopes Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has found a recipe for attacking success ahead of Saturday's visit to Tottenham.
Manuel Pellegrini's side saw a 100 per cent start to the season ruined by successive home defeats against Juventus in the Champions League and West Ham in the Premier League.
However, an emphatic 4-1 victory at Sunderland in the League Cup in midweek suggested that a semblance of order had been restored.
City have averaged two goals per game in the Premier League so far this season, but Ivory Coast midfielder Toure has suggested that the early leaders will score even more once new signings Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne have settled in.
“In Africa we say it is like mayonnaise - you all blend together,” Toure said.
“It is difficult at the moment because we have just bought players such as De Bruyne and Sterling.
“We need to make sure they feel part of the team.”
Pellegrini picked a strong side at Sunderland, making only three changes - one of which was enforced as centre-back Eliaquim Mangala picked up a muscle injury during last Saturday's game.
Mangala's fitness will be assessed before the trip to White Hart Lane, as will that of fellow centre-back Vincent Kompany, who has missed two games since suffering a calf problem against Juventus.
“We will see from now to Saturday which players can recover,” Pellegrini said.
“We have a lot of injured players - at least eight. I hope we can recover at least some of them.”
Martin Demichelis, who played at Sunderland in place of Mangala, and Nicolas Otamendi are Pellegrini's other main options in central defence if Mangala or Kompany fail to recover in time.
Playmaker David Silva is also in contention to return, having been forced to withdraw minutes before kick-off against West Ham after complaining of tightness in his calf.
Defenders Pablo Zabaleta and Gael Clichy, midfielders Fabian Delph and Samir Nasri, and forwards Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfried Bony are the other players on Pellegrini's casualty list.
Pellegrini will feel, though, that his squad should be more than strong enough to cope.
They remain two points clear of Manchester United going into the weekend's fixtures, and have the psychological boost of having claimed victory on three of their last four visits to White Hart Lane, winning two of those games 5-1.
Meanwhile, Mauricio Pochettino believes his Tottenham players are finding their feet despite a 2-1 League Cup defeat against north London rivals Arsenal on Wednesday.
Spurs' progress to the final of the competition last season provided a high point during the campaign, but their priority now is to build on the successive Premier League victories over Sunderland and Crystal Palace.
Focus has been trained on Harry Kane's problems in front of goal and the England striker suffered another frustrating evening against Arsenal as he failed to score his first club goal of the campaign.
Pochettino strengthened his forward options during the transfer window with the arrival of Clinton N'Jie from Lyon and Son Heung-Min from Bayer Leverkusen.
While South Korea's Son has made an impressive start, it is clear the manager needs Kane to rediscover his scoring form soon.
Son, who scored twice on his debut against Qarabag in the Europa League before marking his first Premier League appearance with the winner against Palace, will return to the side after starting on the bench against Arsenal.
That will be one of a number of changes after Pochettino opted to use his fringe players midweek and the manager hopes his reap the benefit of that decision this weekend.
“Now we need to prepare for City. We have one day less because they played on Tuesday and we have to be strong,” he said. - AFP
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