Sergio Aguero, David Silva, and Aleksandar Kolarov join the injury list
Vincent Kompany may miss the Bournemouth game to recover properly
Wilfried Bony backed to succeed after returning to full fitness
Manchester City will have to make do without some key players for forthcoming games after a costly international break as it emerged that Sergio Aguero could miss up a month out and David Silva could miss next week’s Manchester derby with injuries suffered with on international duty with Argentina and Spain respectively.
City will be without a recognised senior left back after Aleksandar Kolarov sustained a hamstring injury while on international duty for Serbia – Gael Clichy is still recovering from injury himself – and Manuel Pellegrini may be privately fuming that captain Vincent Kompany played an hour in Belgium’s victory over Israel despite joining his national team with a medical report which requested that he rest.
“Sergio Aguero has a muscle injury. It’s an important injury so I don’t think he will be back before one month.
“Aleks Kolarov also has a muscle injury in his hamstring. David Silva has a kick in his ankle and is also out.
“It’s difficult to know when they will be back because we have an important away day next week, hopefully they will be back before 15 days.”
The Chilean was not happy about the risk taken by Marc Wilmots, the Belgium manager, after he fielded City and Belgium captain Kompany for just under an hour against Israel despite missing a month for City.
He also appealed for fairness in terms of international teams to be barred for fielding club players who hadn’t played for three games prior to going on international duty although he did accept the right for players to report to their national teams.
“I was not pleased because we sent Vincent with a medical report that said he was not able to play but as the manager of Belgium said he can do what he wants with his international players.” said Pellegrini who hinted that Kompany might not be risked for the Bournemouth game tomorrow.
“For Vincent after one month without playing it’s important to work at least one week completely at high intensity before he played.
“He couldn’t do this because he played for Belgium so he had to recover here Wednesday and Thursday.
“We will see in the future where or when he can return to his position.”
Pellegrini was adamant that City would learn from their home defeat to West Ham and insisted that a win was vital to retain top spot in the Premier League title race.
The Chilean noted that Bournemouth will arrive having worked for a fortnight on a plan to tackle City over the international break while City’s players scattered far and wide and Pellegrini will have to dig deep into his squad to field a team.
He said: “I think the only way to win it is to be absolutely sure you play with 100% of intensity against teams that come here without responsibility to win the 3 points.
“I’ve seen them in the last 3 games they played and they really tried to play as a very good team.”
One of City’s squad players taking the field tomorrow may be Wilfried Bony.
While Bony isn’t in the same class as Aguero, Pellegrini was convinced that with help from his team mates, such as Kevin De Bruyne, he will prosper.
“I always trust a lot with Bony, he’s a very good striker and a very good player who has had a lot of bad luck here.
“He arrived in January and immediately went off to the Africa Cup of Nations and came back with an important problem with his knee.
“Last season he couldn’t demonstrate what he can do but I am sure that now he has the responsibility, he always worked very well and he will demonstrate why he’s here.
“We also have Kelechi [Iheanacho] and it’s more important the movement of the team and not just individual players.
He continued: “With Kun Aguero out for one month, he has a chance to show himself and we can give all the responsibility to score to Bony.
“We had a month with all the strikers injured and James Milner could score because we made a lot of movements in attacking.
“Now when we play against teams who are normally with eight or nine players behind the ball near the box and we make a lot of movement to give him advantage to have the option to score.”
City will have no recognised left back for the visit of Bournemouth but Pellegrini suggested a solution after the return to fitness of Pablo Zabaleta.
He said: “One of Zabaleta or [Bacary] Sagna can play left side. We had Angelino who is a young player but now he’s playing with New York City.”