City left short of strikers as Jesus out for a month
GABRIEL JESUS is facing a month on the sidelines as Manchester City’s dire injury situation gets worse.
With club record scorer Sergio Aguero one of seven first-teamers to miss the opening Premier League game at Wolves, Jesus led the line and scored in a 3-1 win. However, a muscular injury picked up in that game means the Brazilian will be unable to shoulder the goalscoring burden of replacing Aguero and leaves Pep Guardiola with no recognised strikers to choose from for the upcoming games.
City face Leicester on Sunday in the Premier League before trips to fellow top-flight sides Burnley and Leeds in the next week and Guardiola will have to find a solution in his depleted pack, with 17-year-old Liam Delap unexpectedly in contention after scoring on debut in the Carabao Cup this week.
“We don’t have Sergio, we don’t have Gabriel. We have Liam,” said the manager with a weary smile.
“We have many options. Cole Palmer can play as a striker too. We will see,” he added. “Sergio still hasn’t trained and Gabriel was injured against Wolves so he will be out for a month.”
City cannot expect much respite either in the international break before they return with Premier League games with Arsenal, West Ham and Sheffield United and the start of the Champions League in October.
Aleks Zinchenko, Bernardo Silva and Joao Cancelo all returned from September camps with their national teams carrying injury and are not expected to be back before the second half of October at the earliest.