City defence on the line vs Blues
Manchester City’s defensive resilience in the absence of the injured Benjamin Mendy faces its first and arguably toughest test when the Premier League leaders travel to champions Chelsea on Saturday. The 23-year-old France fullback has been in fine form for City since his £50 million ($67 million, 57 million euros) preseason move from Monaco.
But Thursday saw City announce Mendy will undergo surgery in Barcelona on Friday after he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during last weekend’s victory over Crystal Palace.
“Bad news guys -- I’ll be joining Injury FC on loan for a couple months with ruptured ACL... but will be back soon & stronger hopefully,” tweeted Mendy. City manager Pep Guardiola is under pressure to make good on a huge amount of pre-season spending that saw him splash out more than £130 million on three full-backs alone by bringing major silverware back to the Etihad Stadium.
The Spanish manager, speaking before the full extent of Mendy’s injury was confirmed Thursday, said: “We have Danilo, (Fabian) Delph and (Oleks) Zinchenko who can play there so we will see as we go along.”
Both City and Chelsea, three points behind both Guardiola’s men and secondplaced Manchester United, go into Saturday’s game on the back Huddersfield Town vs Tottenham Hotspur 5:00 PM AFC Bournemouth vs Leicester City 7:30 PM Manchester United vs
Crystal Palace 7:30 PM
Stoke City vs
Southampton 7:30 PM
West Bromwich Albion vs Watford 7:30 PM
West Ham United vs
Swansea City 7:30 PM Chelsea vs
Manchester City 10:00 PM
midweek Champions League victories over Shakhtar Donetsk and Atletico Madrid respectively.
PENALISED
But Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is unhappy that, while City played at home on Tuesday, his side have a short turnaround after arriving back in London in the early ours of Thursday morning following their success in the Spanish capital.
“I think we are a bit penalised,” said Conte.
“Man City is a really strong team. They are scoring a lot of goals (21 in six Premier League games alone), they are in a good moment of form and we have to prepare well (for) this game because it is very important.
“There is the international break (after this weekend),” the Italian added. “My surprise is for this because there is the time (to play the game later).” United will be huge favourites to beat basement club Crystal Palace at Old Trafford on Saturday.
Amarjit Singh Kiyam was taken by surprise when he was chosen by his team-mates to lead the India U-17 World Cup side in an internal poll ordered by head coach Luis Norton de Matos.
He, however, insisted that he believes in unity of the team and not on individuals.
“I was very much surprised when the coach told me that I was the captain of the team. It was an amazing feeling for me. But at the end of the day we play as a team, we win as a team and we lose as a team. Individuality matters little, unity is the strength of this team,” Amarjit said.
Hailing for Haokha Mamang village in Manipur’s Thoubal district, Amarjit faced hardships during his childhood days as his farmer father and fish-seller mother toiled hard to run their family and at the same time saved some money from their meagre income to support their son’s pasof
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