Can Manchester City deal with their injury crisis ?

Kolkata, October 4: Manchester City have grounds to make up they want to complete a hat-trick of Premier Leagues despite being five points behind their biggest challengers Liverpool who have enjoyed a 100 per cent start to their season.

The Reds have been maintaining an extremely professional approach in their game so far as Jurgen Klopp's side are looking to grind out three points by any means. The football world has hardly seen Jurgen Klopp being so much pragmatic and it must worry the City boss Pep Guardiola.

Injuries have not been kind to the Cityzens so far. Their star defender Aymeric Laporte is sidelined with a long-term knee injury and to make things worse, John Stones also joined the physio room as the defence looks short on numbers. Leroy Sane is another major miss who might well miss the whole season. Now, the Cityzens' star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is also sidelined with an injury and is certain to miss the game against Wolves this weekend.

PL Fixtures | Points Table

To make things even worse, Bernardo Silva could also land himself and the club in trouble as the FA is reportedly set to hand him a six-game ban being charged with misconduct by the English FA over a racist Tweet he sent to team-mate Benjamin Mendy. He compared a picture of the Frenchman as a child to a racist caricature used to brand sweets called Conguitos (Little Congos), sold in Portugal and Spain.

FA charges Man City midfielder Bernardo Silva over Mendy tweet

With so many selections headaches, it will be a tough ask for Guardiola to get the right results and keep their pressure on the league leaders Liverpool who might well take a bigger lead at the top. However, Guardiola is one of the best managers in the world and that is because he can deal with such situations and he does have a good squad to cope with the issue.

A change in system could be an answer to the problem. Guardiola used to field City in a three at the back system in his initial days and that is certainly an option now. Both Kyle Walker and Fernandinho are versatile enough to play centre-back while Joao Cancelo would certainly thrive in a wing-back role on the right-hand side and either of Mendy or Zinchenko could play on the left. If Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne both miss the games, David Silva has be played in a more advanced playmaker role which used to be his favourite position in his younger days.

Rodri and Gundogan will be the two central midfielders behind Silva and Aguero and Sterling would be leading the linesCity are blessed with a very deep squad and Guardiola is a master tactician and a supreme tinkerer. His squad is capable of delivering even with a few big absentees and that is the reason why they won the title last season despite De Bruyne missing the major part of it with injury.