Football
Richard Jolly, ESPN.com writer 9y

Vincent Kompany, three senior strikers out for Man City vs. Crystal Palace

MANCHESTER -- Vincent Kompany will miss Manchester City's Premier League game against Crystal Palace game on Saturday, while the defending champions will also be without all three of their senior strikers.

Manager Manuel Pellegrini admits City will have to find another way to play and will use a different system as he plans to use midfielders in attack.

Sergio Aguero (knee), Edin Dzeko (calf) and Stevan Jovetic (hamstring) are all out injured while Kompany, who made his comeback in last week's 1-0 win at Leicester, was hurt again at the King Power Stadium.

But the City captain is not expected to be a long-term absentee, with manager Pellegrini saying in a pregame news conference on Friday: "Vincent is recovering from both of his injuries, his hamstring and his calf. He is improving but he is not fit for Saturday.

"The strikers, the three of them are out. None of them are fit so we have to arrange without Jovetic, without Dzeko, without Kun [Aguero]. We will try to play in another way. I hope that midfielders will arrive from the second line and we will score in another way."

Pellegrini has already mooted the idea of playing either David Silva, Samir Nasri or James Milner in attack after seemingly ruling out using youngster Jose Angel Pozo alone up front again.

"We will have to change our way to play, a different system because when you don't have strikers you must arrive to the goal in a different way," he said. "I hope tomorrow we will do it."

If City win by four goals they will go top of the league as Chelsea, who were eight points ahead of them recently, do not play until Monday.

But Pellegrini believes it is more significant to end the first half of the league season with as many points as possible.

He added: "We don't know if Chelsea after that will win their game or not. I talk with the players every day that it is important to have at least 43 or 45 points -- that is the maximum we can have after the first round -- and that will be a very good first round considering that last year we had 41 points from the first round."

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