Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini claims he has complete faith in French defender Eliaquim Mangala ahead of the Premier League clash with Crystal Palace at Eastlands on Saturday.
City captain Vincent Kompany has been ruled out until the start of 2015 with a recurrence of a hamstring problem, so Mangala will get a run of games at centre-back alongside Martin Demichelis.
And Pellegrini believes the France international, who joined the English champions from Porto during the close season for £24.3 million, will prove his worth during a hectic festive period after struggling at times in his first season in the Premier League.
“Of course we have a lot of trust in Mangala. That’s why we bought him,” Pellegrini said. “Maybe he has made some mistakes in the Premier League and maybe he has delayed a bit to be settled here.
“But we continue to trust in him because I am sure he is a very good player, he is a very young player and he will be a very important centre-back for our team.”
City are also set be without influential forward Sergio Aguero against Palace as he recovers from a knee injury.
But Pellegrini remains confident that the Argentina international will be fit in time for City’s Champions League tie with Barcelona in February.
“Sergio has a torn ligament and I think it will be long before the Champions League tie against Barcelona, probably in the first weeks of January, that he will play,” Pellegrini added.
City are without all three of their main strikers at the moment, with Edin Dzeko (calf) and Stevan Jovetic (hamstring) also both set to be absent through injury this weekend.
Pellegrini is contemplating whether or not to use midfielders David Silva, Samir Nasri or James Milner out of position in attack against Palace, while 18-year-old forward Jose Angel Pozo remains another option.
“We will see what works and which players will play in that position,” Pellegrini said.
“At the moment, we are trying to keep our minds open and recover as soon as we can with all the players, because we have few strikers.”
While City are on a five-match winning run in the league, crosstown rivals Manchester United will be looking to record a seventh consecutive victory when they travel to Aston Villa.
Last Sunday’s victory over Liverpool enabled Louis van Gaal’s team to remain eight points behind Chelsea and five behind City, prompting captain Wayne Rooney to declare that they still have designs on the title.
Villa saw a five-game unbeaten run come to an end in a 1-0 loss at West Bromwich Albion last weekend and have a dismal home record against United, who they have not beaten in the league at Villa Park since August 1995.
Fourth-placed West Ham, beaten only once in their last 10 matches, host bottom club Leicester, who are now five points from safety.
Leicester have not won since stunning Manchester United 5-3 in September, but West Ham manager Sam Allardyce says that Nigel Pearson’s team are no pushovers.
“Leicester are a hard team to break down. They work very hard for each other,” he told his prematch media conference.
“Despite their run of games without a win, they haven’t been turned over by anyone — it’s only ever by the odd goal — so there are a lot of dangers in Nigel’s teams that we need to be well aware of.”
Fifth-placed Southampton are on a very different trajectory to West Ham and saw their run of consecutive defeats extended to five on Tuesday when they crashed to third-tier Sheffield United in the League Cup. Ronald Koeman’s side entertain Everton on Saturday.
Elsewhere, improving Burnley visit Tottenham Hotspur in a near dress rehearsal for next month’s FA Cup third-round encounter.
