Vincent Kompany's Manchester City injury problems are agonising to watch... Pep Guardiola will wonder if he can rely on him 

When Vincent Kompany took to the pitch for Manchester City on Tuesday night, you can imagine he had breaking records on his mind. The first captain to lead City into the last eight of the Champions League for starters.

After seven minutes, as he meandered uncomfortably towards Manuel Pellegrini’s dugout, he had broken a different record: the fastest substitution of a captain in Champions League history after suffering an apparent calf injury.

City are through to the latter stages of this competition but, like Kompany, they limped there.

Vincent Kompany (right) hobbles off after just seven minutes in Manchester City's clash with Dynamo Kiev

The City captain suffered his 14th calf injury since joining the club and could miss the rest of the season 

It is painful to watch the imposing Belgian captain try to manage his broken body. He wrote before the game of his recovery from injuries, clearly without knowing the next one was coming so quickly.

‘I have played in some very big games in the last few weeks but I am fit and focused,’ he said. ‘My preparations are absolutely right. My life at the moment is about forgetting what has gone before and making sure this ends up being a successful season for the club.

‘Setbacks are a part of life and I like to think that my nature means I can rise to any challenge.’

In his absence, Leicester and Spurs have thrived and City find themselves in with the title race also-rans. Yes, they won the Capital One Cup, but what will Pep Guardiola make of all this? When studying City’s squad, he will look for players he can rely on. Can he still rely on the injury prone defender?

This man’s luck is rotten — there can be no other way of putting Kompany’s injury record.

He claimed in late December, on feeling a calf twinge and having to depart his comeback game against Sunderland before it began, that his body felt invincible. Sadly the evidence for that does not stack up.

The Manchester City captain has missed 27 games so far this season through recurring calf problems

The Belgian will miss Sunday's crucial derby clash with Manchester United in the Premier League

The picture of him pinching the bridge of his nose before trudging off nine minutes after joining the action on Boxing Day as a second-half substitute was enough to stun the Etihad into shocked silence.

Nothing will quite match the eerie quiet that day, but Tuesday night ran it close. The unified groans here were pronounced as Kompany attempted a routine clearance inside six minutes. The defender slumped to the floor crestfallen, a sight so familiar during a wretched few years before shaking his head.

He was greeted by a sympathetic Pellegrini as he came off. They both know how this story plays from here if the injury proves as bad as previous ones.

After the match, Pellegrini said: ‘It is difficult for me at this moment to say if he is out for the season but having a problem in his calf, we are in the middle of March, then it is middle of April so is at least three-quarters of the rest of the season.

Incoming boss Pep Guardiola will have to decide if he can rely on the injury-prone defender

City fare much better record with Kompany, but have had to do without him for much of the last seven years

‘I think he must be very strong mentally because it is very difficult to accept but there is nothing else to do. We must see tomorrow with the exams. You always take a risk, working during the week in training is also a risk but you recover without any problem.

‘You say it was his sixth game in 20 days but he has not had a problem before the game so I don’t think it is anything apart from bad luck.

Speaking on BT Sport after the match, former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said of Kompany’s loss: ‘It takes away a bit of confidence from the other players in the team.

‘Vincent Kompany, he’s the mainstay in this team, he’s the guy that they all look to for confidence and when it goes behind the midfield they know it’s going to be cleaned up. Without him they don’t seem as much of a team.’

Rio Ferdinand believes having Kompany in the team gives City's players more confidence

Nicolas Otamendi also went off injured during the match but could recover in time for the derby on Sunday

Asked if it diminishes City’s chances of Champions League success, Ferdinand said: ‘100 per cent. The record that they have without him is very worrying for what’s to come for the rest of the season.’

This season they have lost 33 per cent of matches he had not been involved in and have kept just six clean sheets without him.

On this Sunday’s Manchester derby, Ferdinand added: ‘The Manchester United players I’m sure will be licking their lips at the two centre halves watching them tonight when they came in.’

The numbers make for grim reading. Fourteen calf injuries since joining the club, four alone this season. That’s 27 matches Pellegrini has not been able to call upon him since August.

More than that though is the impact his absence has on the rest of this squad. This season they have lost 33 per cent of matches he is not involved in and have kept just six clean sheets without him, a scarcely believable statistic for a club whose third-choice centre half cost north of £40million.

Ferdinand said United would be licking their lips watching Eliaquim Mangala (left) and Martin Demichelis

Manuel Pellegrini said: 'He (Kompany) must be very strong mentally because it is very difficult to accept'

Eliaquim Mangala has enjoyed his best games alongside the Belgian. Nicolas Otamendi, who was also forced off inside 23 minutes against Dynamo Kiev, is certainly calmer for his communication. Martin Demichelis over-commits himself fewer times a game too.

Even Pellegrini, a manager so adept at the straight bat, shows strands of emotion when asked about Kompany.

‘It’s very difficult to find a particular thing about a muscle injury,’ he said last month when asked about his skipper’s troubles.

‘There’s a lot of things you can do to try to have less injuries but no one is sure you are not going to have any more.’

One thing is for sure, Pep Guardiola’s will have finding a solution high on his priorities list.