Pep Guardiola urged the English champions to recover in Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Sporting Lisbon, despite his belief that Manchester City will find it difficult to overcome an escalating injury issue. After losing to Tottenham in the League Cup and Bournemouth on Saturday, ending an 11-month streak without a loss in the Premier League, City will travel to Portugal. Guardiola’s team, which also features Oscar Bobb, Ruben Dias, Jack Grealish, and John Stones, has a fantastic list of absentees, including Ballon d’Or winner Rodri, who will miss the rest of the season due to a knee injury.
As Sporting manager Ruben Amorim leads the Portuguese champions for the last match before taking over as manager of Manchester United, Guardiola will face one of his future opponents.
When the teams last faced off, City easily won 5-0 in Lisbon and on aggregate in the round of 16 of the 2021–2022 Champions League.
Guardiola continued, “They have changed players but have the same manager and the same mentality,” in reference to the challenge Sporting offers.
“Winning the league for first time in 20 years and then doing it again last season shows what a good job he has done.”
Two years ago, Bernardo Silva returned to Lisbon, where he started his career at Benfica, and scored twice in City’s 5-0 victory over Sporting.
Despite their injury problems, he encouraged City to not make excuses.
“There is no doubting that we are stronger when our squad is full. Many outstanding players are absent from our team,” Silva remarked.
“It has been six weeks since we could rely on Kevin. Other players are out for shorter periods of time, and Rodri is out for the season. But we never come up with an excuse. That was never the purpose of our group.
With seven points from their first three games, both teams are undefeated in the new Champions League format.
Read More: Rauf rues ‘untidy mistakes’ as MCG ghosts continue to haunt Pakistan
