Manchester City handed another injury blow ahead of Arsenal clash

Manchester City will take on Arsenal in a crucial Premier League match on March 31 at the Etihad Stadium and Pep Guardiola’s side has been handed another injury blow.

Prior to the ongoing international break, all of Ederson, Jack Grealish and Kevin de Bruyne made themselves unavailable for their country as they were recovering from injuries. Guardiola hoped that they would be fit by the time the defending champions will host the Gunners.

While De Bruyne and Grealish were seen participating in a training session on Monday, Kyle Walker left England’s friendly against Brazil as he had pulled his hamstring. While the injury did not seem serious, he will be assessed on his return to Manchester on Thursday.

Most recently, Manuel Akanji became the fifth player to pull out of the international break as confirmed by Switzerland’s head coach Murat Yakin.

Yakin confirmed that Akanji picked up a knock during the match against Belgium and missed the training session on Monday. He is now set to miss the second friendly against Ireland.

The players are expected to report back at the club on Thursday where they will be assessed and the decision on their participation in the match against Arsenal will be taken then.

Earlier, Arsenal were handed a major blow as one of their key defenders Gabriel Magalhaes was ruled out of Brazil's squad due to an injury.

The Brazil Football Federation confirmed that Magalhaes was omitted from the first-team squad with an injury with Juventus’ Gleison Bremer replacing him.

Just one point clear of Pep Guardiola’s men, Arsenal will take on Man City as the table-toppers, similar to last season when the Gunners took on Man City being on top of the table but ended up losing the title after William Saliba was ruled out with injury.

The Gunners spent the major part of the previous campaign on top of the league but a bad spell of four to five matches in April 2023 ended their hopes of winning the league title after 19 years.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be determined to make sure that history does not repeat itself as the Gunners are in pursuit of their first league title since 2004, when they won the famous “Invincibles” won the Premier League without losing a single match all season

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