Manchester City are badly in need of a strong statement right now after having just been utterly shocked at Norwich City. It wasn’t just that City lost to a newly promoted side at Carrow Road, it’s that they lost to a very short-handed due to injury Norwich side.

The loss on Saturday showcased just how much the loss of Aymeric Laporte hurts this club. City has some real issues and weaknesses in defense (Nicolas Otamendi in particular needs to get better), and those were exposed on the weekend. Can Shakhtar Donetsk take advantage of those pull off a massive upset win in midweek?

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Norwich City head coach Daniel Farke has a massive task on his hands tomorrow, as he’ll take on Manchester City, the first team in history to spend one billion Euros on building a roster. He’ll also have to do it with nothing short of an injury crisis on his hands.

“Sometimes when you have many muscle injuries, you have to look at doing something different in training,” said Farke. “But these injuries are so unlucky. We cannot complain too much. We won’t cry, it’s tricky, but we will try to search for some solutions.”

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Manchester City travel to newly promoted Norwich City tomorrow before kicking off their 2019-20 Champions League campaign against Shakhtar Donestsk on Wednesday. The big news in regards to City this past international break was the serious knee injury to starting defender Aymeric Laporte.

When asked about the severity of the first teamer’s injury, City manager Pep Guardiola said at his press conference today: “Five months, six months. Next year sure, January or February.”

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Wednesday brought good news and bad news for former Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany. We’ll start with the bad news first, he’s been ruled out of his own testimonial match after having suffered a hamstring injury.

Now to the good news, the Belgian, who left the club this summer to become player-manager at Anderlecht has been honored with a road naming and commissioning of a sculpture at his former club.

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Over the course of the very long season the injury bug takes a bite or two out of every team. Some sides getting bit more, and harsher of course than other. And for some teams, the injury toll begins to pile up early in the season, just ask Manchester City.

The defending Premier League champions, we learned today, will be without their best centre back in Aymeric Laporte until 2020. The winners of the first domestic treble in English history last season are already without stellar German winger Leroy Sane until February or March.

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Manchester City will meet Brighton & Hove Albion for the 23rd time tomorrow, with City winning 13 of the previous clashes. Brighton have five wins to go along with four draws. It’s been 11 years since the Seagulls last beat City, and it came in the League Cup, via a penalty shootout.

Since that setback, City have won all five meetings, including a triumph in the EFL Cup semis last season. The four Premier League meetings since then have seen Brighton score just twice. That said, let’s take a look at who Pep Guardiola could start tomorrow, as he aims to continue the stretch of recent domination.

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The last weekend before the first international break is here, and the most lopsided game on paper, according to forecasters, is definitely Brighton & Hove Albion at Manchester City. Of course, games are not played on paper, by simulations and forecasts.

They are played in real life by human beings, and sometimes, crazy things happen. City didn’t expect to drop points at home to Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, and they were kind of robbed in that result. The second place Sky Blues will effort to get a fool proof result here.

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When Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola selects his first team tomorrow at the Vitality Stadium, where his side will clash with AFC Bournemouth, he’ll have a multitude of options in various positions groups. Guardiola was asked yesterday, at his Friday press conference, if this is the deepest and most talented squad that he has ever had.

While acknowledging the depth and talent of this 2019-20 team, he said that all of the teams he’s had since he moved to Manchester from Bayern Munich in 2016 have had extreme quality.

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