He will now add to the growing injury list that contains John Stones, Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Mateo Kovacic.
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Manchester City began their title defence of the Champions League with a hard-fought 3-1 victory over Red Star Belgrade. It was anything but easy for Pep Guardiola’s side, as they had to bounce back from a shock first-half deficit to turn the game on its head in an inspired second half performance. A double for Julian Alvarez and a late third from Rodrigo helped Man City start the new Champions League season on a winning note.
There were plenty of positives to take from the result for Manchester City, however, the one big concern was the injury sustained by their star midfielder Bernardo Silva. The Portuguese international was taken off before the half-time break. He will now add to the growing injury list that contains John Stones, Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Mateo Kovacic. Speaking about Bernardo’s injury, Pep Guardiola, quoted by the club’s website, said after the match against Red Star Belgrade, “I didn’t speak to the doctor but apparently for the next game he will not be available to play.”
The Manchester City manager added: “We have five important players injured. Sustaining that for a long time will be difficult but it is what it is. We cannot have 35 players because that will be chaos for the clubs and go bankrupt. Unfortunately it’s long time for Kevin, John didn’t play, maybe Kova is coming back, Jack has a week or 10 days. It is what it is. I prefer to use everyone and with the players that we have, go for it.”
Guardiola then shifted his attention to the goal scorer on the night, Rodrigo, by calling him the best player in his position in the whole world. “Right now, yeah, he is the best. Hopefully he can be better and improve but he is an extraordinary holding midfielder. We were lucky the club signed this player and when he arrived he was not this type of player,” he explained.
He added: “Of course he play an amount of games and now he is one of the captains. He is a top class player. The goal is top class but defensively, offensively he reads the play and spaces and knows exactly where men are free. Close to the box he is so dangerous. He loves to arrive in the final third and dribble and shoot. He is playing really, really well.”
The Champions League game also saw a first start for Matheus Nunes with Manchester City after joining them in the summer. “Matheus played his first game [after] not much time. He has a special quality like Mateo [Kovacic] and Kevin [De Bruyne] to run with the ball and then stop. He has time to improve and we believe he can do more than sometimes he does,” Guardiola stated.
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How long will Kevin De Bruyne be out injured? Pep Guardiola responds
