Kompany confident of sticking around at Man City after accepting 'Mr Grumpy' role

A long-serving skipper at the Etihad Stadium believes he has plenty to offer, with there an acceptance on his part that he will see fewer minutes

Vincent Kompany appears to be planning for the future at , with the long-serving defender prepared to accept that he will be seeing less playing time.

Having been at the Etihad Stadium since 2008, it has been suggested that a decade of loyal service could soon be brought to a close.

Kompany remains under contract until 2019, but Pep Guardiola has invested heavily in alternative centre-half options such as John Stones, Nicolas Otamendi and Aymeric Laporte.

There is, however, still a role for a talismanic club captain, with the 32-year-old having battled back from a succession of niggling injury problems to keep himself in contention.

Kompany told CNN of those recoveries and his future plans: "I don't have any sort of doubt in my mind, I know how I'm going to come back.

"The great thing for me, I know that if I don't play for three months or four months I can within a week and do well. I have that belief in myself.

"I'm not worried about getting extra game time, extra minutes, and all this kind of stuff that so many other players will worry about."

Instead, Kompany has embraced a standing at City which sees him lead by example on and off the field, with it his current duty to keep a Premier League title-winning squad grounded and pushing for more major honours.

He added: "Last season we developed a similar game, we played really well. But in key moments we just weren't as effective as we were this year.

"And, on top of that, I think youth. We have a young team, lots of legs, lots of positive desire to do well. And all these guys needed to achieve something and they've done it now. And now it's Mr Grumpy's role to tell them they've done nothing yet! Let's do more."

One man he will be dragging along with him is Kevin de Bruyne, with a fellow Belgian considered to be “a master brain of football” and a man unfortunate to have seen his stunning contribution this season overshadowed by the 43-goal efforts of Mohamed Salah at Liverpool.

Quizzed on whether De Bruyne should have got the nod in the 2018 PFA Player of the Year vote, Kompany said: "I'm going to be biased. I'm going to say yes, of course.

"But how can you take away from Salah what he's achieved? He's an African player, which I'm happy about as well.

"It's important for a lot of [reasons]. It's going to have a big impact in his country and for the continent as well. But Kevin is a master brain of football.

"The way he sees and understands the game is beyond what you can see in terms of ability from any player and that's why it's difficult to categorise Kevin's performance.

"If you take the full package, the passes, the amount of actions he's made that were so clever and different from what anyone else would've done you would put him on another level."