The latest Liverpool FC news as Premier League title rivals Manchester City suffer two more injuries in the cup exit at Tottenham
Manchester City have suffered a double Premier League title race blow following their 2-1 Carabao Cup defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.
First-half goals by Timo Werner – his first in 18 matches – and Pape Sarr inflicted a first defeat of the campaign on City before Matheus Nunes picked up what would prove to only be a consolation goal in the fourth minute of added time before the break.
But City were also hit with two injuries as defender Manuel Akanji was forced out of the team after picking up an injury in his pre-match warm-up, before winger Savinho was stretchered off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That duo have now been added to a list already consisting of Rodri, Kevin de Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Jeremy Doku and Oscar Bobb.
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City were the bane of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, winning six out of the last seven campaigns. On two of those occasions, it was only one point that separated the teams.
While the Reds were brilliant during their 2019/20 title-winning season, by November their rivals had suffered problems with Sergio Aguero, Aymeric Laporte, Leroy Sane, David Silva, Rodri, Ederson, John Stones, Benjamin Mendy and Oleksandr Zinchenko all spending time on the sidelines.
And it may well be injuries that play an integral part in this gruelling season too. Liverpool have suffered their own in recent weeks.
First-choice goalkeeper Alisson Becker has been sidelined for the majority of October, and should only return after the next international break. Diogo Jota and Harvey Elliott face a similar time to recover from their respective issues, and summer signing Federico Chiesa has not been available for selection as he gets back up to speed.
While Liverpool know all four will soon be back and ready to contribute, their counterparts at Man City are becoming gradually worn down. As things stand following their Carabao Cup exit on Wednesday night, Pep Guardiola only has 13 senior players to call upon heading into the weekend.
The fresh problems they face came after Guardiola bemoaned his weakened ability to rotate in the cup in the wake of his existing issues.
“Now we have a problem that we have a lot of injured players and I cannot rotate like I would and I don’t want to put much pressure on the young players on this stage for this opponents for the way I play so that’s why I have to make a mix for the players, split minutes with 45 minutes-45minutes,” the Spaniard said.
Speaking after the game, Guardiola added: “We are 13 players (available) so we are in real difficulty.
“The guys that play, they finish most of them with problems and we’ll see how they recover.
“I think when we are in trouble, like we are because in nine years it never happen this situation with many, many injuries for many, many reasons, in these situations, the players they make a step forward and they are more together than ever and they will try to do this week in this short time to recover.
“It’s tough. Akanji yesterday, I didn’t know it, in the last action felt something in the muscular part of his body and today in the warm-up he didn’t feel good. He said he could take a risk and I said no, no risk.
“Ruben (Dias) is struggling sometimes as well in some moments. It’s been getting more difficult game by game, but maybe one day we will arrive altogether.
“That’s why the guys who are here and making an effort to be with us, fighting to be with us and playing with pain and focus for us, these guys I will not forget it.”
With City in the midst of a crisis, if Slot can keep his side fit and firing, with any kind of luck things will fall into place just as they did five years ago.
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