Man City boss Guardiola reveals major injury blow as he explains post-Man Utd comments
Man City boss Pep Guardiola has revealed that Ruben Dias could miss up to four weeks with a muscle issue after their Manchester derby loss last weekend.
The Citizens have been suffering with injuries to key players this term with Ballon d’Or winner Rodri ruled out for the whole season earlier this campaign.
Dias had only just returned to the Man City side after missing matches in November and now Guardiola has confirmed that the Portugal international will be out “for three or four weeks”.
Guardiola told a press conference ahead of their match against Aston Villa on Saturday: “[He will be out for] three or four weeks. It was a muscular injury, [after] 75 minutes against Manchester United he felt something. He is so strong and he stayed on the pitch and now he is injured.”
On if there was any other injury news, Guardiola added: “[Manuel] Akanji is back training the last two days which is good for us.”
After their 2-1 defeat to Man Utd in the derby on Sunday, Guardiola insisted that he was “not good enough”, repeating three times that he was the problem with Man City winning just one of their last 11 matches.
Asked about his comments, Guardiola continued: “I just finished a game where we were close to winning and we lost. For the sequences that happened I was not happy. I tried to be honest with myself here right now in six or seven days ago, if you fall down six times you have to stand up seven.
MORE MAN CITY COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Big Weekend: Tottenham v Liverpool, Pep Guardiola, Southampton, Havertz, Barcelona
👉 Rashford slammed for taking ‘flamethrower’ to Amorim relationship as ‘era of tough-nut footballer’ dies with Walker
👉 Man City and Man Utd might both have substantial summer transfer regrets
“I am fine. I am a normal person with feelings like all of us. When a situation is going well we are better and when it is not going well professionally we are more [focused] on what we have to do.”
When asked if having no midweek game has helped Man City prepare for the Aston Villa match, Guardiola said: “That is obvious, we have to start again. Even when we win many, many games in a row we don’t know what is going to happen. Of course we have to try it again and sooner or later it will turn around.”
When asked if there was anything from their previous meeting with Aston Villa that they could bring to the match on Saturday, Guardiola replied: “When they came back here we beat them 4-1, you have to analyse all the times we drop or lose points?
“We win more than lose. Of course we lose there, they were better by far, they came here we were better. Why do you have to compare what happened there? The past is the past, this is a new moment, you have to deal with it.”
