Man City handed double injury blow ahead of Champions League clash vs Real Madrid

Topics: UEFA Champions League, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Pep Guardiola, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Joao Cancelo

Pep Guardiola will have to work his magic to put up a decent lineup against the Spanish side in the first leg of their semi-final tie.

The end of the season has not been smooth for Manchester City in terms of injuries, and with the UEFA Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid, Pep Guardiola will need to show off his massive expertise when it comes to handling his squad, as he will be facing a major selection problem for the game set to take place this Tuesday.

Earlier today, journalists that had access to the team's training session were made aware that the club will have to face Real Madrid without three key players in defense. One of those names was already known, as Joao Cancelo had been ruled out for being booked against Atlético. Nevertheless, the list of absences had two more names added to it today, as Kyle Walker and John Stones have been ruled out of the match due to different injuries.

Walker has not taken part of any of the team's training sessions for the past ten days due to an ankle problem, while Stones picked up a knock in the team's Premier League win against Brighton last week, giving Guardiola a predicament to solve. These absences could force Pep to use Oleksandr Zinchenko as left back, while Nathan Aké may be forced to play on the right flank, where he would be in charge of covering none other than Vinicius Jr., one of the fastest players in the world.

Although Guardiola left a glimmer of hope regarding their availability, it seems far-fetched to think Guardiola would risk any of them to play this game when there are still quite a few matches left to be played in the season, even if almost none of them seem as relevant as this one.

"Kyle has not trained for the last week to 10 days and John not since Brighton. We'll have the training session, I'll speak with them, see how they feel and take a decision," Guardiola said.

Manchester City will face Real Madrid for the third time in the KO stage of the UEFA Champions League. The first of those meetings saw Los Blancos making it to the 2015-16 final after defeating the Citizens 1-0 on aggregate. Nevertheless, their most recent encounter took place in the Round of 16 of the 2019-20 tournament, and Pep Guardiola's side emerged victorious with an emphatic 4-1 aggregate win.