Manchester City attacking midfielder David Silva has stated that the Citizens need to learn how to cope with the absence of inspirational skipper Vincent Kompany.

Kompany has missed large portions of the current campaign due to various injuries and unsurprisingly, the City backline has looked very shaky in the absence of their star defender.

Silva has now admitted that the loss of Kompany is always a blow but has urged the entire team to pull together in order to make up for the absence of the Belgian international.

"Vinny is a key player for us and our captain. With or without him in the side we have to work hard to concede less," said Silva.

"It's a duty we have to fulfil before too long. Hopefully we can do that in this new year.

"Any team will miss their captain when they're out and we're no exception. When you look all over the field there are lots of figures willing to step up to the plate when needed. We have lots of experience all over the team and it's up to people like that to do that.

"It's not just the defence that defends, but the whole team. It's the same when we're attacking – you need to have everyone helping out going forwards, so it's down to us all to perform our defensive duties and it's something we'll be trying to do to help the cause.

"Thinking positively, we're battling on every front and involved in every trophy so it's about trying to be involved as long as we can to the end of the season in each of those competitions."