Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany has praised Eliaquim Mangala despite the summer signing having a game to forget during City’s weekend’s win against Hull City.
After a successful debut against Chelsea last weekend, Mangala headed in an own goal and needlessly conceded a penalty, allowing Hull back into the game.
However goals from Edin Dzeko and Frank Lampard’s fourth goal in a week gave City a much needed 4-2 win.
“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,” said the Belgian international, speaking about the £32 million defender.
“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.”
Manchester City will be hoping to pick up their first Champion League points as they play Roma on Tuesday night.