MenuMan City need Vincent Kompany back to improve defence - Manuel Pellegrini

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says his side have to improve defensively after losing 2-1 to Arsenal on Monday night.Theo Walcott and Oliver Giroud scored to handArsenal a 2-1 win, with City's defenders culpable in the absence of injured captain Vincent Kompany. And the manager believes that the sooner the Belgian returns, the better, as the club have only kept two clean sheets in their last 12 Premier League games."We must improve because we are conceding too many goals," Pellegrini said. "We hope that Vincent will return soon. If we have Vincent, David [Silva] and Sergio [Aguero] playing normally every week then I suppose that we are going to continue being an important team for the fight for the title."Kompany has been out with a calf injury since September and City have now conceded 18 goals in the nine matches without him. Eliaquim Mangala started in the centre of defence alongside Aleksandar Kolarov on Monday and was widely criticised for his part in the second goal."I think in the last games we made a lot of collective mistakes. Today we improved in that sense and we made an individual mistake," Pellegrini added."We dominated in possession and in options toscore against a very good offensive team like Arsenal but of course if we concede two goalswe must continue to try to think why."I understand that we must improve, especiallyin the games we are playing away, but we continue to be involved in all the competitions."Meanwhile, Yaya Toure insisted City can still be champions, despite the defeat.No side has ever won the Premier League after suffering five defeats before Christmas and City were beaten for the fifth time at the Emirates Stadium. But vice-captain Toure, who scored their consolation goal, takes heart from City's record of coming from behind to overtake teams in previous title races.They were eight points behind Manchester United in 2012 and seven behind Liverpool in 2014 and became champions in both seasons."The past has shown that you can still be champions starting from behind," Toure told Sky Sports. "The championship race is not over."The 32-year-old also felt City could have taken a point against Arsene Wenger's team."We're a bit unlucky in the end because we had many opportunities and that is disappointing [to not score them]," he added."They played very well. It is difficult to control amatch at Arsenal."Information from Richard Jolly was used in this report.