Man City suffer another injury blow with midfielder out until October

Manchester City are light on bodies in midfield as they approach the opening weeks of their Premier League campaign.

Guardiola and Kovacic

Manchester City fear that Mateo Kovacic could be out until October with the Achilles injury that he had surgery on this summer.

Kovacic went under the knife shortly after the season finished, missing the Club World Cup and the rest of pre-season with the hope that he would be able to be fit around the start of the new campaign.

The Croatian has travelled with the group to Palermo for their last friendly before their first Premier League game, but it is thought that he will still be out for a considerable length of time with concerns that he may stay sidelined until October.

That would add to City's problems in defensive midfield for the first few months of the campaign, with Pep Guardiola having already declared that Rodri will not be fully fit until after the first international break. The Ballon d'Or winner picked up a bad groin injury against Al Hilal in the Club World Cup and the club are having to be cautious after he missed the majority of last year with an ACL tear.

Those absences leave January signing Nico Gonzalez as the only natural holding midfielder to start the opening weeks of the campaign as he looks to overcome a difficult start to life at the Etihad. The £50million arrival looked to have put a bruising debut at Leyton Orient behind him as he settled into the team, only to be left on the bench for six straight matches towards the end of the season before being rarely used in the Club World Cup.

Ilkay Gundogan and Tijjani Reijnders are both capable of playing in the deepest midfield role, although they are both preferred further forward when they can use their knack for goals to hurt opposition teams in the box.

"We have three [midfielders]," Guardiola said. "Kova is injured until September/October, Rodri is coming back after six months and Nico. The others can play there but are more attacking, more in the box.

"Gundo can play there and Tijji can play there but when everybody is fit their position sit play more up front. We have Phil, Cherki, I don't know - I forget because we have a lot.

"I saw the season schedule in my office and after September it is every three or four days for 11 months. At the end, we will need players."

City's injury concerns have added to Guardiola's feeling that they may not be at their best for the opening weeks of the campaign as they look to mitigate any physical damage done by the Club World Cup and ensure they can put up a competitive challenge to Liverpool and Arsenal.

"We’ve got some niggles, players coming back with some injuries, but the mood is quite similar to what we were living at the Club World Cup," he said.

"Maybe we missed some friendly games to prepare and arrive the first three games against Wolves, Spurs and Brighton a little bit better but we needed to rest and decided to make more training sessions than play games."

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