Vincent Kompany ups the hard yards to make Manchester City go the distance

The prize for Manchester City on Sunday is clear. Beat Chelsea and Manuel Pellegrini’s team will already have a five-point lead over the champions.

The spoils on offer at the Etihad Stadium are available after only two games of the season. The glass half-full Chelsea follower will believe 180 minutes of football means nothing. The pessimistic fan may worry the gap will grow greater.

What is clear is the statement of intent City made in the 3-0 dismantling of West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns on Monday. Vincent Kompany’s header from David Silva’s 59th-minute corner indicated desire and redemption; the desire of a group of players to prove they can be champions again after an insipid defence of the title.

The redemption was personal. Kompany had endured the worst season of his seven-year City career. He returned to training three weeks early this summer in a bid to rediscover his best. He was on a mission and within the hour of the opening match his mission witnessed lift-off.

Kompany’s goal celebration – his first for City in two seasons, since a 2-0 win over West Ham United in May 2014 – featured the Belgian mounting a barricade and letting go a primal roar at the travelling support. “We have something to prove – last season was below what we are used to,” the captain said. “There are a lot of favourites for the title and apparently we’re not one of them so this was a great way to start.”

It was. As a snapshot the comparison between Monday and the club’s 2014-15 campaign suggests what City will be this season: a lean and mean machine. For some, there is a caveat attached to the turnaround at The Hawthorns. It runs that West Brom were the easiest opposition faced by the expected title contenders over the opening round of games. Poorer than West Ham United, the conquerors of Arsenal; Swansea City, who drew at Chelsea; and Tottenham Hotspur, who were defeated by Manchester United.

Yet Tottenham were arguably more disappointing than West Brom. And, according to the EA Sports player performance index, the Official Player Rating Index of the Barclays Premier League, the numbers alone for the ground covered by City show how Kompany and his colleagues were determined to stamp out any prospect of their opponents asserting themselves and was the reason why Tony Pulis’s team were so weak.

In the 2014-15 season Kompany covered an average of 8.98km per 90 minutes. On Monday this rose to 9.5km. David Silva floats around the pitch yet he still does the hard yards and there were more of them against West Brom; 10.35km was last term’s average, in the Midlands it was 11.1km. Of the regular starters Jesús Navas led the way with 10.5km – on Monday this was up to 11.6km.

City’s shots on target ended at an average of 47.81% last year; against West Brom it was 77.78%. For passes completed in the opponent’s half – where City’s slick carousel looks to do the damage – the rate rose to 90.06% from 81.55%. Average possession increased from 59.74% to 69.25%. Over last year’s 38 matches 74.83% tackles were won; 81.82% was the count against Pulis’s side.

A factor here may be that while Sergio Agüero, Pablo Zabaleta, Fernandinho and Martín Demichelis were involved in the Copa América this summer, Kompany, Silva, Yaya Touré, Joe Hart and the rest of City’s internationals had a break. The previous summer all were involved in the World Cup in Brazil.

“It is always better for the players to have a good pre-season,” Pellegrini says. “But don’t forget this year we had the Copa América also, we had the four players, Sergio, Pablo, Fernandinho and Martín who played. Fernandinho had to play [at West Brom] because we didn’t have another in that position. It was different last season with the World Cup, we had a lot of players involved: of course I prefer this.”

One fine performance counts for nothing if the next is a dud, of course. This was why Kompany mentioned the win over West Brom being a “start” and nothing else. On the evidence of their individual displays the rest of City’s big guns are similarly on message. Silva, Touré, Hart and Agüero, when he came on, wore the expression of players intent on showing again and again over the next nine months why they are bona fide A-list performers.

Pellegrini says: “Now or never is not exactly the word because they won here a lot of titles. This club in the last four years won two Premier Leagues, runners-up, and won cups. It is important for them because they are in their best age. The important thing for them is to be ambitious, to have a winning mind, to try to continue to win titles and improve in Europe.

“They have a lot of challenges and our most important players are in their best ages.”