Man City guaranteed to be without six players for Southampton to leave Pep Guardiola sweating

Manchester City will be missing some of their star first team regulars for the visit of Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.

The Blues have been hit with a spate of injuries in recent weeks and the situation has worsened over the past few days. Rodri and Oscar Bobb are long term absentees while Kevin De Bruyne and Kyle Walker are also currently sidelined with no timescale on their return.

And this week wide men Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku were added to the injury list with the pair absent from the 5-0 Champions League win over Sparta Prague. Neither will be fit enough to feature against the Saints and it means Guardiola is down to the bare bones.

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He named only seven subs in midweek - including two goalkeepers - and while he has enough depth to recall the likes of Ederson, Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic and Ruben Dias to the side should he wish, City are operating with depleted numbers.

With a League Cup tie at Tottenham to come in midweek and five more matches before the November international break including a difficult looking trip to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League, Guardiola will be desperate to avoid any further injury issues.

The Etihad chief prefers to operate with a small squad supplemented by young players but in a campaign that could last 12 months and see City comfortably play 70 matches, further setback are almost inevitable and Guardiola must hope the injury situation begins to ease in the coming weeks.