Manchester City were not good enough in their Champions League defeat on Tuesday and Pep Guardiola says they will wait on players to come back
Manchester City's players following their Premier League defeat to Manchester United
Antoine Semenyo did not travel to Norway with Manchester City(Image: ( Martin Rickett/PA Wire))
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Pep Guardiola mentioned Manchester City's injury situation before and after their astonishing 3-1 defeat to Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League, and there is sympathy to be had. It does seem as though a swathe of injuries have suddenly swamped the team in the last three weeks, even if there will be lines drawn between some of the players that have fallen down and the amount of minutes they had played when they did.
It is difficult to account for losing both of your first-choice central defenders within 30 minutes of each other though as City did against Chelsea, and the holding midfield position appears to be cursed with none of the three picks for the season able to stay fit. The problem for Guardiola though is that when he spoke on Tuesday night of City waiting on their absent players they will be waiting for some time.
Josko Gvardiol will do well to play again this season, Mateo Kovacic and Savinho remain sidelined for months, Ruben Dias is not expected back until February, nobody appears to know when or if John Stones and Oscar Bobb will return - it will be interesting to see if Bobb's availability improves should Fulham seal a deal for him - and the status of Nico Gonzalez and Matheus Nunes for Saturday remains unclear.
That doesn't leave many players to come in and immediately improve the situation for City, although there are some. Marc Guehi will surely come straight into the team to give poor Max Alleyne a breather, Antoine Semenyo's stock has gone up by not playing in Bodo and the same can be said for Bernardo Silva however much the City captain divides opinion.
Those three should give the Blues some qualities that they were missing on Tuesday night, but other than that for the second successive game there were only really two players who emerged from a sorry defeat without their reputations taking a hit. Gianluigi Donnarumma could not do much about the defending in front of him, and Abdukodir Khusanov was the best of a bad bunch in that group.
Other than that, everyone else who started in Norway has to be uncertain of their place. That includes Ballon d'Or winner Rodri, 2023/24 Player of the Year Phil Foden, and record-breaking striker Erling Haaland.
At the same time, Guardiola does not have the players available to make wholesale changes from the Bodo/Glimt disaster so some of those who played so poorly will have to go again and show that they can be part of changing a dynamic. Having reached a point last month where the team almost picked itself every game, there are suddenly lots of spots up for grabs.
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