Injuries once again hit Manchester City both before and during their defeat to Real Madrid | OneFootball

There were a host of storylines to emerge from Manchester City’s 3-1 defeat to Real Madrid last night. The way that Carlo Ancelotti’s side ended City’s 24/25 Champions League campaign is a major one. It also appeared that the end of an era has well and truly arrived at Manchester City and that fact cannot be ignored. But a familiar story also emerged both before and during last night’s match. Injuries have once again hit Pep Guardiola’s squad. That’s been a never-ending cycle all season long for the world champions, and it continued last night.

The first injury concern to arise for Manchester City was Erling Haaland. City’s number 9 was unable to start last night’s match due to the knee injury he sustained against Newcastle. Pep Guardiola revealed post-game that Haaland didn’t feel that he was in a condition to play last night. Guardiola explained: “Erling trained yesterday. I believe the images we have done are fine, but he has discomfort walking and, for example, on stairs. We spoke yesterday, and this morning and he said he didn’t feel good, didn’t feel ready.”

The other injury concern to come out of last night’s match for Manchester City was John Stones. The England international only lasted seven minutes before he had to be replaced by Nathan Ake due to injury. At this stage it is unclear what injury Stones sustained or how long he will be out for. But Manchester City did miss Stones once he was substituted.

It remains to be seen if Erling Haaland or John Stones will be fit enough to play against Liverpool on Sunday. But on a night when several storylines emerged for Manchester City a familiar one continued in the shape of fresh injury concerns for Pep Guardiola’s side.