Sergio Aguero has been ruled out of tomorrow’s Champions League game against Juventus at the Etihad Stadium.
Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini confirmed the news today but remains confident that the Argentine striker, who took a kick to his knee at Crystal Palace on Saturday, will be fit to face West Ham this weekend after checking the results of precautionary scans today.
“We will see how long he will be out – I hope he will be ready by the weekend.” commented Pellegrini, reiterating once again that Raheem Sterling could fill in as a striker to supplement City’s only fit and eligible striker Wilfried Bony.
City’s last minute goal hero at Selhurst Park, Kelechi Iheanacho, was not selected in their European squad due to UEFA’s stricter rules on Champions League eligibility.
Two players who sat out the Crystal Palace game on Saturday may return against Juventus. David Silva and Raheem Sterling trained this morning and Pellegrini confirmed they would be fit enough to feature.
City may also welcome back Fernando and Samir Nasri after both sat out training this morning, he added:
“Both of them are recovering from different problems and aren’t 100% recovered but I hope both of them will be 100% tomorrow.”
Pellegrini also dismissed Juventus’ poor start to their domestic Serie A season. Without a win in three games, the Chilean insisted that the Italians would be no less motivated to earn their first win of the season at the Etihad tomorrow.
“This is a different competition. They didn’t start well in their league but this can motivate their players.” said Pellegrini.
The Chilean also noted that City were under no more pressure than usual to progress in the competition but mentioned the twists of fate that have paired City with Barcelona in the round of 16.
“We need to be successful in Europe but we need to go step by step, Barcelona is a very strong team and I hope we will not play against them in the round of 16.” said Pellegrini, who added that City didn’t want to get ahead of themselves by discussing knockout round opponents.
“Last year the group was more difficult, but we qualified and had to play against Barcelona.
“It’s bad luck to play against the strongest team two years in a row.”