The manager of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola has admitted that the club is in “trouble” over the increasing number of his players going down with different degrees of injuries.
The City bench had just six outfield players as they defeated Red Star Belgrade 3-1 in the Champions League group stage opener on Tuesday, September 20.
Portuguese midfielder Bernardo Silva was the most recent casualty of an injury that will keep him out for “the next few weeks”.
He has now joined the list of injured players like John Stones, Jack Grealish, Mateo Kovacic, and Kevin de Bruyne.
These injuries are springing up after the club decided to sell first-team players like Riyad Mahrez, Cole Palmer, and Aymeric Laporte in the summer. The club’s former captain Ilkay Gundogan also left the club for FC Barcelona at the end of his contract this summer.
Despite losing all these players, coach Pep Guardiola and his boys have managed to win eight straight games across all competitions so far this season.
But Pep Guardiola is scared that things will get extremely difficult for his team before the November international break as they have a Premier League game against Arsenal on October 8, a Carabao Cup game at Newcastle, and another Champions League game at RB Leipzig, before the break.
The Spanish tactician said, “We are in trouble”.
“We are in trouble but I am not going to say ‘Oh, we have a lot of injuries’. It is what it is,” said Guardiola
“With the players we have, we will go for it. As long as we have that mentality, that is good
“We have five really important players injured and to sustain that for a long time would be difficult.”
Pep Guardiola added, “We can’t have, with the salaries and the budgets for the transfers, 55 players. It would be chaos for the clubs. They would go bankrupt.
“Unfortunately it is a long time for Kevin. John didn’t play, it’s a little bit long. Maybe Kova is coming back. Jack maybe in a week or 10 days, but after he needs his condition.”
