Manchester City will be missing 11 senior players for tomorrow’s Carabao Cup tie with Liverpool.
That’s according to the Manchester Evening News, who give a run-down of the current state of play at City. Firstly, there’s some potentially bad news for Liverpool, as both Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan are said to be in-line to feature.
There has also been a return to training for Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji and Rodri. However, it’s claimed that the trio are unlikely to be ‘rushed back’ to face the Reds. As a result, City’s team will reportedly be a ‘makeshift’ one.
With 16 first team players featuring at the World Cup, that was always likely to be the case for this one. And given that many of those players made the knockout rounds of the competition, Pep Guardiola has slim pickings for once. Although there’ll be little sympathy from Anfield, the list of City’s absentees does make for impressive reading.
Defensive colleagues Ederson, Aymeric Laporte, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo, Kyle Walker and John Stones are all yet to return to training. The likes of Bernardo Silva, Julian Alvarez, Kalvin Phillips, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are also still away.
Of course, City do still boast some expensive talent in their ranks. Ominously, Erling Haaland is said to have had some ‘time off’ and is expected to start against Liverpool. Meanwhile the likes of Stefan Ortega, Riyad Mahrez Sergio Gomez and Cole Palmer are also in-line to play.
Liverpool favourites at the Etihad?
Looking at the list of names unavailable for City, and it would be easy to make Liverpool favourites for this one.
Jurgen Klopp is missing far less of his first team players, with only Ibrahima Konate yet to return to the fold. All of Alisson Becker, Fabinho and Virgil van Dijk are expected to be given extra time off. But that still leaves the manager with plenty to play with.
It’s interesting to read that City’s England players are still yet to return to training. Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold are already back for Liverpool. Both could reportedly feature at the Etihad.
Beyond that, it’s a little tricky to predict just what Klopp will do. There’s a tough game to think about just four days later as the Reds travel to Aston Villa.
As a result, Jurgen certainly won’t go full tilt at City. But with players like Haaland and Mahrez still to contend with, there’s going to have to be a certain level of quality on the pitch.
Either way, we’re really looking forward to this one. After six weeks with no meaningful Liverpool action, it’s great to have the Reds back. With so many of the Champions senior squad missing, it could be a great chance to kick off the second half of this weird season in the best way possible.
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