Manchester City will miss the services of their influential player Kevin De Bruyne for the game against Manchester United in an EFL Cup tie on Wednesday night. Manager Pep Guardiola confirmed that De Bruyne had a knock and has ruled him out of the knock-out clash before casting doubt on De Bruyne's participation in City's matches over the coming week. Furthermore, he revealed injury updates on defenders Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta.
Kevin De Bruyne was substituted at half-time in Manchester City’s 1-1 draw against Southampton. And Guardiola has now raised concerns of the player being able to play in the weekend’s Premier League match against West Bromwich Albion and the Champions League clash against his former club Barcelona.
"He had a knock on the leg and he cannot play," Guardiola said. "Hopefully [he can face] West Brom and Barcelona [but] he's a doubt even next weekend.”
Pep Guardiola gave further insight on other injuries and revealed that his defence will be without De Bruyne’s Belgian compatriot Vincent Kompany and the Argentine Pablo Zabaleta.
"Pablo, I think not," Guardiola explained. "Vincent, I think he can but I don't know if he will."
Read more: EFL Cup 2016: Manchester United vs Manchester City - Five things to watch out for
Pep Guardiola further gave an explanation to his selection criteria and said that he would persist with the rotational policy. He believes that the team is affected by fatigue which resulted in poor result against Southampton. However, he insisted that there is enough quality in the squad and moreover, some other players would deservingly be given a chance even in a high-octane derby match.
"A derby is a derby," he said. "It's always special and so we are going to play a game like a game.
"It's a special game. We're going to play seriously like we always do since my period here and try to win the game.
"We're going to rotate, yeah - several [reserve] players are going to play for sure. First, because they deserve, second because the last game was a tough, tough game.
"Against Southampton the people [players] were tired. I will still decide which guys because I need today to see the players in a training session."
Manchester City has lost a bit of momentum that they carried early in the season. Guardiola’s side have not won a single game in their last five matches in all competitions and a knock-out clash seems to an ideal situation to turn things around.
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