We are in trouble—Guardiola
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, says his side are “in trouble” and have just “13 players” after more of his first-team squad sustained injuries in their 2-1 League Cup defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.
City had young, lively forward, Savinho, taken off on a stretcher in the 63rd minute, while Ruben Dias was also taken off at half-time and Manuel Akanji suffered a calf issue in the warm-up and did not start, having been named in the first XI.
A youthful City XI still managed to trouble Spurs, with Nico O’Reilly denied an equaliser at the death by an excellent Yves Bissouma goal-line clearance, but in all, this was a troubling night for the Premier League champions.
“We are 13 players, so we are in real difficulty,” Guardiola said afterwards. “We had to make the effort last week because the guys who played, most of them finished with problems. We will see how the recovery goes.
“We are in trouble, because in nine years we’ve never been in a situation with this many, many injuries for many reasons.”
Guardiola was already without six first-team players for the game and rested star striker Erling Haaland, who remained on the bench for the whole game.
Talismanic, Ballon d’Or-winning midfielder, Rodri, will miss the entire rest of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained in September, while Kevin de Bruyne is sidelined with a thigh injury for an unknown period of time, with Guardiola ruling him out until after the international break.
Kyle Walker is another long-term absentee with a knee injury, as is young attacking midfielder, Oscar Bobb, who fractured his leg in August.
Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish have also missed recent games with injuries.
The loss of summer signing, Savinho, if it is another long-term one, will be a big blow.
“We have to see if it’s just a knock or something else,” Guardiola said afterwards. “It was in the bone. Hopefully it’s nothing dangerous, but we will see tomorrow.”
This was City’s first defeat of the season and Guardiola insisted he was still “proud” of a “really good performance”, with his side still looking imperious in the Premier and UEFA Champions League despite their lengthy injury list.–Talksporta
