Pep Guardiola has bumped up some academy defenders to the Manchester City squad after Nathan Ake's injury
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Updated 14:34, 07 Mar 2025
Nathan Ake
Nathan Ake
Pep Guardiola has bumped up academy defenders into the first team squad with serious injuries to three of his four main centre-backs.
Manu Akanji and John Stones were already sidelined for months with injuries they had picked up in recent weeks, then Nathan Ake went off at half-time against Plymouth last week in the FA Cup. The Dutch defender had surgery this week and will miss between two and three months, ruling him out of most of the rest of the campaign.
"Ten to eleven weeks, they said. When it is surgery, it is pretty serious and something wrong happened," Guardiola said of Ake. "He struggled a lot this season with the problems in his feet and it happened."
With three sidelined, there will be more pressure on Ruben Dias to stay fit for the rest of the campaign and new signings Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis to hit the ground running. Khusanov has looked solid after a gaffe in the first few minutes of his debut against Chelsea, while Reis played at home to Plymouth in the FA Cup.
Guardiola hinted that there could also be opportunities for some of the academy defenders as they make up the numbers in training.
"Khusanov's impact was really good from the beginning and Vitor played really well as well against Plymouth," he said. "Now some central defenders are coming from the academy to train with us because of the absence of the three central defenders almost until the end of the season.
"Maybe for the World Cup they will be ready, or maybe the last one or two Premier League games. But when we're talking about eight, 10 weeks, it's a lot of time.
"We are lucky that the club took the decision to bring someone instead of doing it in summer, otherwise we would be in trouble."