Manchester City’s Premier League title race has taken a double hit following the 2-1 Carabao Cup loss to Tottenham Hotspur. The first-half goals by Timo Werner and Pape Sarr marked City’s first defeat of the season, with Matheus Nunes’ goal in the fourth minute of added time before the break serving as mere consolation.
However, City also suffered two injuries; defender Manuel Akanji was forced out of the team after an injury during his pre-match warm-up, and winger Savinho was stretchered off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. These two players join an already lengthy injury list that includes Rodri, Kevin de Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Jeremy Doku and Oscar Bobb.
City have been a thorn in Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side, winning six out of the last seven campaigns, often by a narrow margin.
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While Liverpool shone in their 2019/20 title-winning season, by November their rivals had been plagued with injuries, with Sergio Aguero, Aymeric Laporte, Leroy Sane, David Silva, Rodri, Ederson, John Stones, Benjamin Mendy and Oleksandr Zinchenko all spending time on the sidelines.
Injuries may once again play a crucial role in this demanding season, with Liverpool also suffering their own in recent weeks.
First-choice Liverpool goalie Alisson Becker has been out for the best part of October and is slated for a return only post the forthcoming international fixtures. Both Diogo Jota and Harvey Elliott are on the mend and anticipated to have similar recovery timelines, while new arrival Federico Chiesa is yet to make an appearance as he works on reaching full match fitness.
The Reds are looking forward to having this quartet back in the mix imminently, but their Man City rivals are facing mounting fatigue issues. Following their Carabao Cup departure on Wednesday night, Pep Guardiola is down to just 13 senior squad members for the upcoming games.
The added strain comes hot on the heels of Guardiola’s complaints about his constrained ability to shuffle the pack for cup ties amid ongoing injury woes.
“Now we have a problem that we have a lot of injured players and I cannot rotate like I would and I don’t want to put much pressure on the young players on this stage for this opponents for the way I play so that’s why I have to make a mix for the players, split minutes with 45 minutes-45minutes,” he lamented.
Post-match, the City boss also revealed, “We are 13 players (available) so we are in real difficulty. The guys that play, they finish most of them with problems and we’ll see how they recover.”
“I think when we are in trouble, like we are because in nine years it never happen this situation with many, many injuries for many, many reasons, in these situations, the players they make a step forward and they are more together than ever and they will try to do this week in this short time to recover.”
He also revealed the latest setback with Akanji, saying, “It’s tough. Akanji yesterday, I didn’t know it, in the last action felt something in the muscular part of his body and today in the warm-up he didn’t feel good. He said he could take a risk and I said no, no risk.
“Ruben (Dias) is struggling sometimes as well in some moments. It’s been getting more difficult game by game, but maybe one day we will arrive altogether. “That’s why the guys who are here and making an effort to be with us, fighting to be with us and playing with pain and focus for us, these guys I will not forget it.”
With City facing tough times, Guardiola seems to be hinting that if they can keep their squad healthy and maintain their spirit, they might just find the same fortune that helped them succeed five years ago.
