Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is planning to dip into the January transfer market after losing captain Vincent Kompany for up to six weeks because of a knee injury.
Kompany, 30, hasn’t featured since being forced off before half time in City’s 2-1 win away to Crystal Palace last weekend after suffering a head injury that left him with suspected concussion.
The City captain missed their 1-1 draw with Gladbach in the Champions League in midweek, however Guardiola has since revealed his absence was due to a fresh knee injury picked up and that he has now gone to Barcelona for treatment, all but ruling him out for the remainder of 2016.
“[Dr Ramon] Cugat confirmed what the doctor and the guys here said. It is ligament [knee damage] and he will be four or six weeks out,” The Daily Mail quote Guardiola as saying prior to their clash with Burnley on Saturday.
The Belgium international has suffered a nightmare few years with injury that has limited his involvement on the pitch for club and country, however his latest set-back has left Guardiola particularly short at centre-back with John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi the only recognised players in that position.
Alexander Kolarov and Fernandinho have already been used in that position this season, while Guardiola confirmed Bacary Sagna is another option. However, the Spaniard has ruled out utilising Yaya Toure, who was brought back from the cold to make his first league appearance of the season lsat weekend, in defence, as he did in the 2009 Champions League final with Barcelona.
“Yaya can play in many positions but I think we have other options to play as central defenders,” Guardiola continued. “What happened with Yaya in Barcelona happened once in the final of the Champions League against Manchester United because we had a lot of problems there, we didn’t have players and he played amazing.
“Now Yaya is going to play in more offensive terms to score goals, in our build-up in the last third of the pitch. We have other options. Fernandinho can play theree, Sagna can play there. In Crystal Palace after one and a half months injured Bacary played the first game and he played central defender for many minutes. He played awesome so we have other options to solve that problem.”
With two-and-a-half years remaining on his existing deal, this isn’t the end of Kompany at City, but Guardiola would certainly be right to look at alternative options in January. In fact, Kompany has played just 1295 of a possible 4500 minutes (28.8%) in the Premier League since the start of last season.
For more stats on Vincent Kompany, click here to visit his WhoScored player page
