Pep Guardiola says that Manchester City will have just three fit defenders for Sunday’s game against Manchester United, and admits he does not yet know who will make up his backline.
City are missing Rico Lewis through suspension as well as John Stones, who suffered a foot injury during the defeat against Tottenham in November, and Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji, who went off injured during the victory against Nottingham Forest last week.
Guardiola says that Akanji and Ake picked up those injuries as a result of playing through pain earlier in City’s run of just one victory in 10 matches, part of an injury crisis which has ravaged the team.
“I don’t know, I don’t know what I have to do,” he said at his press conference on Friday. “I need players, we have three (defenders) and we will see what happens today and tomorrow with the players we have.
“We will think about it, maybe a winger has to play as a full-back, Matheus (Nunes) maybe can play as a full-back or maybe we play five at the back when the wing-backs are wingers. I don’t know, we are thinking what to do with the situation because we have just three defenders.”
City lost Ballon d’Or winner Rodri to a serious knee injury in September, while Kevin De Bruyne missed around 10 weeks with a sports hernia.
Phil Foden has been in and out of the team with different ailments and Mateo Kovacic has been out of action since the November international break, but both were fit enough for the bench during the midweek defeat at Juventus.
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