• Vincent Kompany taken off but injury not serious
• Roberto Mancini fields strong XI in 0-0 draw
Vincent Kompany limped out of Manchester City's 0-0 friendly draw with Dynamo Dresden in Austria on Tuesday evening clutching a hamstring but the Belgian was not seriously injured.
The captain was replaced by Karim Rekik on 68 minutes after Roberto Mancini had fielded a strong XI in City's second match of their pre-season training camp. Kompany, Kolo and Yaya Touré, Aleksandar Kolarov, Pablo Zabaleta, Sergio Agüero and Carlos Tevez all featured but the Premier League champions are still searching for their rhythm and again failed to score, having lost 1-0 to Al Hilal last week in the opening game in Innsbruck.
As City are only eight days into their pre-season and Mancini's Euro 2012 contingent are not in Austria he will not be concerned. But the Italian is already reminding the squad of the difficulty of retaining the title. "We did a good job for the last two years and I hope we can do a better one in the next five," he told CityTV.
"But we cannot rest or start thinking that because we won the title that we are the best. It is more difficult to win the title when you are defending champions. We start again as if from nothing. We must forget that we won the title. Every team will want to beat us and we must work harder than ever.
"I think there are four or five teams that can challenge but now, before the transfer window is closed, I think United and Chelsea will challenge us for the title."
There has been speculation that his four mainline strikers – Tevez, Agüero, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko – may be the subject of bids during the summer, with the latter the most likely to leave as City monitor Robin van Persie's situation at Arsenal.
Mancini said: "I think such speculation is normal – we have four top strikers and all the other teams in Europe would like strikers like them." Of Tevez, he added: "After January last year the problems with Carlos were finished. He came back to Manchester and his behaviour was good. He played a lot of games and scored important goals that helped us win the title. Now he has started the pre-season training very well." Read More
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