Kompany fumes at presence of CSKA fans

Vincent Kompany has expressed dismay at the “unacceptable” apparent presence of CSKA Moscow fans at Tuesday’s clash with Manchester City.

The Russian champions were ordered to deny supporters access to their UEFA Champions League meeting with City at the Arena Khimki, following issues of racism and crowd trouble.

However, a group of people watched on from the main stand and offered vocal support to CSKA as Leonid Slutsky’s men came from two goals down to secure a 2-2 draw.

City captain Kompany lamented the fact he and his team-mates were not able to receive support.

The Belgian is quoted as saying by English media: “You say ‘No fans’ then all of a sudden you turn up and basically the only team that hasn’t got fans is Man City.

“So who’s getting punished? Who is being done for racism? Man City or Moscow, you know?

“I don’t have a problem, they will say it’s sponsors and so on and they need to give certain allocations, but why are we getting punished?”

Kompany insisted his complaints had nothing to do with City’s failure to claim three points following first-half goals from Sergio Aguero and James Milner.

“We’ve analysed it [the game] and we know we should have done better, but things like this are unacceptable to honest. There’s just no fairness in it,” he added.

“It didn’t have an effect on the players. It’s just little things when you leave with a result like this.

“Obviously you can’t deny there’s a bit of frustration, and I’m not looking for an excuse, but if you want to play it fair then, fair enough, you’ve got to let your sponsors have some tickets but why the hell do we not have any fans here?

“Why? What have our fans done wrong? It needs to be looked at, it needs to be changed, because our fans shouldn’t be punished.”

City face an uphill task to qualify from Group E, having claimed just two points from their first three matches.

Nevertheless, Kompany remains confident of progressing and added: “In my case, I’m 100 per cent convinced we’ll overturn it.

“There’s no mental block, there’s just occasionally a number of performances that need to be better, that’s all it is.

“People forget we had a strong group stage last year, it’s not every season the same. But his year we’ve made it more difficult than it has to be.”