Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has insisted that he will not buy any players to replace Kevin De Bruyne, who was taken off the pitch on a stretcher in the closing moments of Manchester City’s 3-1 win over Everton in the Capital One Cup semi-final, a game which De Bruyne also scored in.
The Belgian revealed that he would be out of action for around 10 weeks due to ligament damage, something which Manuel Pellegrini has described as an “important” loss.
This injury means that he will miss the final of the Capital One Cup, which is in little under a month, as Manchester City face Liverpool, a team that has beaten them in the league already, at Wembley Stadium.
Pellegrini has insisted that there is enough depth and quality in the Manchester City squad, and that a replacement for the Belgian is not needed, and due to the short amount of time remaining in this transfer window, there may not be time to sign anyone.
Speaking at today’s press conference, Pellegrini said:
He will not be out for the whole season because it’s not a cruciate ligament but we knew it was important damage. We hope he can return before but the first diagnostic is that he will be out for eight to 10 weeks. It’s very important for the club not to play with Kevin but we’ve had very important players that can’t play through the whole season for different reasons — David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany. We must continue playing with the whole squad if we want to be a competitive team. It is one important player less but we must continue with the same optimism and more responsibility for the rest of the squad. The squad is doing very well so far and I repeat in some moments we couldn’t play with Silva and Aguero.
Now we are going to play without Kevin but I continue trusting in our squad and I am sure we will continue being a competitive team.
