Manchester City fell to their first defeat of the season against Bournemouth on Saturday and Pep Guardiola’s troubles have only grown since then with City sustaining yet more injuries
Manchester City fell to their first defeat of the season against Bournemouth on Saturday and Pep Guardiola’s troubles have only grown since then with City sustaining yet more injuries Manchester City fell to their first defeat of the season against Bournemouth on Saturday and Pep Guardiola’s troubles have only grown since then with City sustaining yet more injuries
Pep Guardiola admits Manchester City could be without John Stones and Ruben Dias for THREE WEEKS.
The Premier League champions are currently embroiled in an injury crisis. City are already without Rodri, Jack Grealish and Oscar Bobb. And Guardiola has now lost two key defenders in both Stones and Dias.
The Spaniard has admitted that both could be sidelined until at least the end of the month. Speaking after his side’s shock 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium, he said: “They [Stones and Dias] are injured. Ruben until the international break will be injured, John – I don’t know if he’ll be back for the next two games.”
City’s weekend defeat to Bournemouth leaves them second in the Premier League and two points behind current leaders Liverpool. But Guardiola wasn’t too harsh on his side’s performance, while he has hailed his walking wounded for putting their bodies on the line.
Guardiola added: “I’m really pleased for the incredible effort from Nathan [Ake], I asked him this morning and I asked him. He said he wanted to try. He’s struggled this season with problems in his feet.
“Kyle [Walker], 16 days didn’t train with us until yesterday. Manu [Akanji] couldn’t play against Spurs and made an effort today.
“Walker – his last game was with the national team to reach 100 games and since then could not train one session, yesterday he did six minutes. It’s what it is. Accept it.”
City have a testing run of fixtures coming up – starting with a Champions League clash with Ruben Amorim’s Sporting Lisbon. They then travel to Brighton before the international break ahead of resuming against Spurs on 23 November.
(
Image:
Getty Images)
Who will win the Premier League? Share your thoughts in the comments below
And Guardiola will be keeping his fingers crossed that his side can recover in time. Explaining the defeat to Bournemouth, Guardiola said: “The 50-50 balls in the middle, the duels, they play this type of game.
“They [Bournemouth] are so aggressive. They had six-seven days to prepare. They have physicality and speed, but you have to win these types of situations. And they had chances.
“Ederson made a good save. We had real good moments at the start of the second half and after that it was difficult to swallow as we were good. After we scored we had momentum and chances but couldn’t score [again].”
Opening up on his side’s ongoing injury battle, he added: “It is what it is. We have few players with a lot of minutes and a lot of players with no minutes to the balance is a bit uncomfortable. We played good against Spurs but today we could not handle their intensity that they had and that’s why we lost the game.”
Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Learn more
Sky has slashed the price of its Sky Sports, Sky Stream, Sky TV and Netflix bundle in an unbeatable new deal that saves £240 and includes 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.
Mirror – Sport
