Pep Guardiola must start Man City teen talent against Sporting to avoid unlikely injury crisis

Thanks to a Manchester derby win where Manchester City were back to their dominating best, the Blues will be looking ahead to the title race run-in with renewed optimism, rather than the anxiety that had slowly begun to creep in over the past few weeks.

In the Champions League things are looking good too. On Wednesday City face Sporting Lisbon in the second leg of their last-16 tie, but with a 5-0 aggregate lead, Pep Guardiola's side are virtually assured of a place in the quarter-finals.

However, in football, good times can very quickly turn sour and if City and Guardiola aren't careful then they could find themselves in a tricky situation.

Despite having four senior centre-backs in the squad, City are facing a potential injury crisis at a crucial stage of the season. Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake were the duo selected by Guardiola for the FA Cup trip to Peterborough last week, but both were withdrawn at half-time with injuries.

Guardiola confirmed afterwards that Dias will be out for four to six weeks with a hamstring injury, while Ake is still not ready to return against Sporting.

Throw in Joao Cancelo's absence through illness this midweek and Kyle Walker's second game of a three-match European ban and the defence is looking very threadbare indeed. But it is at centre-back where potential longer-term headaches lurk.

As they showed against Manchester United, John Stones and Aymeric Laporte are a solid pairing, but they are now City's only fit senior central defenders. If one of them were to pick up an injury against Sporting then the impact on City's Premier League and Champions League pursuits could be severe.

Usually the likes of Cole Palmer, James McAtee and Liam Delap are the youngsters with the most solid cases for