Cup exit against Werner’s Spurs
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Pep Guardiola sees Manchester City in trouble because of their current injury woes. On Wednesday, the Skyblues made a mistake in the EFL Cup, where they were beaten 2-1 by Tottenham with goalscorer Timo Werner. The master coach sees little more than a starting eleven ready for the upcoming tasks.
“We have 13 players so we are in real trouble,” Guardiola said, according to The Times. “The boys who play end most games with problems and we will see how they recover.” In nine seasons at Man City, Guardiola started in the summer of 2016, the Spaniard has never experienced a situation like this. “But we have an academy,” he explained. If there are bottlenecks, people will be served there. On Saturday (4 p.m.) we go to Bournemouth on the south coast for eleventh place in the table.
Man City will have to be without the newly crowned Ballon d’Or winner Rodri for a long time after his cruciate ligament tear, but Guardiola also does not expect Jeremy Doku, Jack Grealish, Kevin De Bruyne and Kyle Walker to return before the international break in mid-November. This means that without them you will also have to compete in the Champions League against Sporting with future Man United coach Rúben Amorim and in the league against Fabian Hürzeler’s Brighton & Hove Albion.
During the cup game against Spurs, Savinho also had to be carried off the pitch with an ankle injury. Manuel Akanji was injured during the warm-up and his replacement Rúben Dias did not survive the game unscathed. Josko Gvardiol also had to be treated after the final whistle. Guardiola couldn’t yet say why.
Erling Haaland is not injured. According to Guardiola, the fact that the top scorer was not called up in the lost cup game against Tottenham was planned from the outset to protect him.
