City skipper Kolo Toure believes his partnership with Vincent Kompany is improving each game.

Toure says the defensive display at Arsenal last Saturday is a further example of how the Blues have tightened up as a unit in recent months.

With just three goals conceded in the last five games, City became only the second club this season to prevent the Gunners scoring at their own ground and Toure admits his partnership with Kompany is getting better all the time.

“It’s going well,” said Toure, who rarely gave the dangerous Robin van Persie a sniff at goal. “I think we played very well as a team and we were really focused at the Emirates Stadium.

“I enjoyed the game, but I stand by my words that the City supporters still haven’t seen the best of me, though I was reasonably happy with my display.

“We are gelling really well in central defence but whether it’s me and Vincent or Vincent and Joleon Lescott or whoever – whenever we play we work well together and over time we’ll get better and better.

“Playing regularly with a defensive partner means you need to know each other’s game really well so their movement becomes almost second nature to yours and you always know where the other player is.

Vincent was outstanding at Arsenal and defensively we restricted one of the most prolific home attacks to just a couple of long-range shots

...Kolo Toure

 

“We have to repeat that standard of performance in our final three games of the season if we are to have a chance of finishing fourth.

“If you look at Manchester United, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic have been playing together for two or three years and they know each other like brothers, but that doesn’t happen overnight.

“If we don’t concede a goal, we can’t lose the game and three clean sheets against Aston Villa, Tottenham and West Ham will give us a fantastic chance of taking nine points out of nine – we just need to make sure we score in each of those games, too.”