Manuel Pellegrini said that Manchester City can win the title without Vincent Kompany and added that he hoped his captain's many calf injuries are not putting his career under threat.
City's defensive record is dramatically better with the centre-back in the team but will be without Kompany, who has suffered his third calf injury of the campaign, for at least another three weeks.
They have only conceded one league goal with the Belgian on the pitch this season and have only kept one clean sheet in the 18 games he has not started in all competitions.
But Pellegrini, who spent £74 million on his alternative centre-back partnership of Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi, said in a news conference: "I think we can win the title not only without Vincent Kompany. I think we are going to win the title if we don't depend on just one player.
"It doesn't matter who it is. You don't want to depend on just one player because you have a good squad."
Pellegrini was heartened by the way his team did not concede against Leicester, the division's joint top scorers, in Tuesday's 0-0 draw, when Kompany was a spectator.
"If we defend very well against a team like Leicester that has scored in their last 15 games at home, it's because the whole team defend well," he added. "I always try to think we do defending and attacking as a team, not just depending on one or two players. If you make important individual mistakes, that's another thing, but I trust absolutely what Otamendi and [Martin] Demichelis or Mangala can do as a centre-back."
Pellegrini said he is optimistic Kompany's current absence will be his last of the campaign and that the rest of his career will not be disrupted by calf problems.
"We hope not," he said. "We hope that this must be a moment of his career. A lot of players at some moments of their career has a bad season for different injuries. I hope this is the part of the season for Kompany and the second part he will be fit. I hope that we are going to have Kompany returning after this injury for the rest of the season."
City are conducting a thorough assessment of Kompany to try and get to the bottom of his injury problems, with Pellegrini saying: "He and the club and are going to do all what we can to try to help him. If not, of course, I repeat we must try to do everything we can do to try to know why."