Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has highlighted the “real difficulties” his side are facing at the moment, after being knocked out the League Cup on Wednesday night by Tottenham Hotspur.
Though Manchester City currently top the Premier League table after going unbeaten after nine games, and are third in the Champions League, that result against Tottenham means they’ve already squandered the first opportunity of the season to win a trophy.
Bigger problems are afoot for Guardiola and his side, however – and they’re not related to the 115 charges the club is facing off the pitch.
Manchester City in injury crisis
The injuries just keep mounting up for Manchester City, with their defeat at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium adding three more players to the treatment table ahead of their weekend clash in the Premier League away at Bournemouth.
Heading into the game, Manchester City were already without six first team players, with Rodri, Jack Grealish, Oscar Bobb, Kyle Walker, Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne all out for various lengths of time.
In the warm-up, though, Manuel Akanji suffered a calf issue that meant he couldn’t play in the game, while Ruben Dias went off at half-time with a recurring issue he is “struggling” with, according to Guardiola. The medical staff then had to stretcher Savinho off in the 63rd minute after suffering an ankle injury.
“We have 13 players, we are in real difficulties,” Guardiola said. “The guys that play, they finish most of them with problems and we’ll see how they recover. I think we are in trouble, because in nine years we’ve never been in the situation with so many injuries.
“The players make a step forward, more together than ever, and we will try to do this week in this short time of recovery. Tomorrow we have two goalkeepers [Ederson and Scott Carson] and Erling Haaland in the training session.
“The rest, we don’t have anything else.”
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The 13 players Guardiola mentions refers to outfielders available for the Premier League match at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday, based off of the Manchester City squad list on their official website. The players include: Nathan Ake, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, John Stones, Josh Wilson-Esbrand, Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan, Mateo Kovacic, James McAtee, Matheus Nunes, Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland.
While Wilson-Esbrand is yet to play a minute for the first team, Nico O’Reilly, who played the full 90 minutes against Tottenham, isn’t included, nor are youngsters Jacob Wright and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, who both came off the bench.
