Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany signs new five-year contract

Posted Thursday, August 14, 2014 by theguardian.com

Vincent Kompany has signed a new five-year contract at Manchester City worth in excess of a basic £31m, with the captain targeting five titles before he leaves the club.

Manchester City’s captain, Vincent Kompany, celebrates winning the Premier League last season, his second title

Kompany has already led City to two Premier League crowns so at 28 he is aiming for three more before he is 33-years-old, by which time the Belgian would have been at the club 11 years having signed in August 2008.

The fresh terms are thought to be worth around £120,000 a-week with considerable add-ons, though despite being the club’s leader this is still less than the new deal agreed by David Silva on Tuesday, which is in the region of £130,000 a-week.

Kompany, who has also won the FA Cup and League Cup while at the Etihad Stadium, said: "To be honest I didn’t have to think twice about it. It’s just about continuity for me – I’ve always wanted to stay at this club for a long time. Looking to the future I can see the potential. To be part of the history we’ve built together. It’s just a natural thing for me to stay longer here and win more trophies."

"I’m not happy with one or two. I want more. I want to be able to look back in my career and say that I won four or five at City. It’s a tough ask, particularly when you know how difficult the league is. But it’s something I’m ready to fight for every day. I’ve always said this is just the start. You look around the whole club and there are signs of it being a great club to be at. We are looking to be one of the big clubs in Europe. We’ll never have the history of some of those other clubs - but what I can do is build a future for us, which is just as bright if not brighter than any other club. That’s the target."

"You won’t see me retiring happy if at the end of my career I say I’ve only won two titles. Maybe five years ago that’s the best I could have hoped for but now we want more. But at the same time we shouldn’t forget where we’ve come from. If we can keep a little bit of that in our passion, our way of dealing with the Premier League and everything we do here I think we’ll be a pretty special club."

Kompany insists that lessons have been learned from two seasons ago when City failed to retain the championship. "It’s difficult when you come back," he said regarding the new campaign. "Somehow you find more hunger and desire to carry on. If you win the Premier League once, you either stop there or you want to carry on and go and win 10. Ten is not going to happen for me but that’s the path that I’ve chosen."

"The hardest thing is to win the first one. When it comes to retaining it, partially it’s a mental thing but at the same time you get experience and you learn. In this case I feel there are a lot of red flags, alarm signals from last time, we have to be really careful not to fall into complacency. I’m pretty confident that’s not going to happen. At the same time you have to look forward and not so much back."

After Manuel Pellegrini guided City into the last-16 of the Champions League for the first time last year Kompany believes the team can go further this time. "It’s a big target for us. But we would never overlook the other competitions," he said. "The Champions League is about measuring yourself – not only against the best in your country but against some of the best in the world. It’s a different challenge."

"We felt last year there was not too much difference between us and the top sides. We all know there are three or four sides who are a little bit above the rest. But that’s the work we are doing here on the training ground, trying to bridge the gap and then trying to become stronger. It’s a tough ask and it will take time but that’s what we are trying to do."

City’s pre-season has been disrupted by the World Cup commitments of many of Pellegrini’s players but Kompany believes they will be ready. Regarding his own fitness, he said: "I hope it will not take much time at all, I hope within the first 10 minutes I can be back at my old level. It’s a very small pre-season but we have important games and you can’t afford to drop your guard, so I think all of us will be ready."

"I don’t think it’s ideal that so many players were away so long and now have to fit into the team. It’s never a good thing to start the season with that many hard fixtures when players have not had a full pre-season. But sometimes you become stronger in adversity and I’m fully confident our team can do that. And if we can that will make it so much better, so much more enjoyable. I’m looking forward to it. We don’t really know how we will go - but it could be better than we think."