Guardiola CONFIRMS another injury for ‘in trouble’ Man City

Manchester City lost ground in the Premier League title race as they were defeated 2-1 away to Bournemouth on Saturday, with Pep Guardiola confirming another major injury blow for the Etihad Club.

Prior to the trip to the south coast, Guardiola had declared that his side were “in trouble” because of the volume of problems they had faced.

In midweek against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup, Manuel Akanji had pulled up in the warm-up while Savinho had been stretchered off with a nasty-looking issue.

It was, therefore, a City team on red alert that travelled to face Bournemouth on Saturday, with the injury epidemic stretching to the middle of the defence, where Ruben Dias and John Stones were both absent.

Meanwhile, there was a scare for Erling Haaland in the first half of the Bournemouth clash, though he was ultimately able to run the issue off.

Guardiola has now confirmed the extent of the problems of Dias and Stones – and it’s not great news.

“John and Ruben will be out for a little bit of a long time,” he said before confirming: “Ruben will be out until the international break.”

Man City injury latest

There was better news for Man City on the injury front.

Kyle Walker, Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne were all back in the squad in Bournemouth, while Savinho and Akanji were both able to feature after their scares in midweek, suggesting that Guardiola’s crisis was not as significant as advertised. He argued differently, though.

“We have other players with a lack of rhythm. Players come from injuries, but we knew it,” he said. “Manu Akanji and Nathan Ake make an incredible effort to be there, Kyle as well has been 18 days without one training session with us and today was there. Rico Lewis, a lot of minutes, he was tired.

“This is the position, we tried to handle the squad at Spurs the minutes to be fresh here. We couldn’t handle it, they were another pace today.”

Rodri is a long-term absentee due to a serious knee injury while Oscar Bobb is not expected back until early 2025. Jack Grealish also missed the weekend’s clash in Bournemouth.