MANCHESTER -- Vincent Kompany looks set to be out for at least a month after limping out of Manchester City's Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev with a recurrence of his calf muscle injury.
City progressed to the quarterfinals for the first time in their history with a 0-0 draw following their 3-1 first leg victory in Ukraine last month.
But the night was marred by an injury to captain Kompany, who hobbled off the pitch after just seven minutes of the match with another calf strain -- the 14th such injury he has suffered since joining the club in 2008.
To make matters worse, teammate Nicolas Otamendi was also taken off injured in the first half although manager Manuel Pellegrini is more optimistic about his chances of recovering.
Pellegrini told a news conference: "Nicolas Otamendi has an important kick. I think that's just a couple of days and he may recover. We'll see the development over the next days.
"And Vincent again he has a muscle injury in his calf same as he had before. We will know maybe tomorrow how important it is but we know with muscle injuries it will be a minimum of one month.
"It's difficult at the moment to say. Having a problem with his calf [he will miss] three-quarters of the season. He must have a very strong mentality of course it's very difficult to accept it but there's nothing else to do."
Kompany was starting his sixth game in 20 days since missing three months of the season with the same injury, but Pellegrini denied it was a risk to give him so much football.
He added: "You always take a risk -- working in the week is always a risk and he recovered in the week without any problem. It was the sixth game but he didn't feel any problem before the game so I don't think was a risk, just bad luck."
Pellegrini was proud of his side after securing their place in the last eight following last-16 exits in the previous two years.
He added: "I'm very happy with the achievement because it's important for this club to continue improving every season.
"This season we won the group and now we are in the best teams in Europe. We will see so far how we can go in this competition."
Dynamo failed to make much of an impression and, injuries apart, City completed the job with little alarm. Nevertheless, visiting coach Sergei Rebrov was pleased with his side's efforts.
The former Tottenham and West Ham striker said: "Unfortunately, we lost the match in Kiev, but today we created some chances. We had opportunities to score and Manchester City had chances themselves.
"The lads that played deserved to be in the Champions League. This game was a good experience for our lads and I think we should say thank you to them, and look to the future with optimism and be stronger.
"We were trying to play compactly and trying to control the game as best as we could. Especially in the first leg, we were not completely relaxed because Manchester City created some situations where we could have been sharper; also today, maybe because we were not playing at home and in front of the opposition fans, there was a sort of nervousness.
"If we played in Kiev the way we played here, probably the tie would have been more interesting."