Retaining the Premier League has always been very difficult but possible. And Manchester City while trying to retain their titile have been dealt with another blow as manager Pep Guardiola is crossing his fingers that midfielder Kevin De Bruyne’s latest injury is not serious.
City’s 2-0 victory over Fulham in the Carabao Cup was overshadowed by De Bruyne limping off with an apparent knee problem with five minutes remaining after falling awkwardly in a clash with Timothy Fosu-Mensah.
The Belgium international was making only his second start of the season following knee ligament damage. And Guardiola hopes De Bruyne will not be sidelined for long heading into a crucial period of the season.
“He’s being checked with the doctors so I don’t know right now (how he is),” he said.
“I think today Kevin is back, the Kevin we know. He spent a lot of time injured but made a huge effort in Donetsk against Shakhtar and played a few minutes against Spurs in a difficult situation because of the pitch and the physicality.
“Today again he was involved with everything offensively and defensively, so hopefully what happened in the last minutes is not serious.”
On to the next one! ⚽️#mancity pic.twitter.com/yMM3oHklHv
— Manchester City (@ManCity) November 1, 2018
Phil Foden and Brahim Diaz, who netted twice, both impressed as City eased into the quarter-finals, where they will face Leicester or Southampton.
Guardiola insists regularly leaving out the teenagers from his Premier League team is one of the hardest parts of his job.
“You cannot imagine,” he said.
“There are no words to explain how tough it is. They make my job so easy on one side because it is a joy to train them but at the same time it is so difficult because they don’t play.”