Nine Premier League teams are in European action this midweek, with two of them, Liverpool and Manchester City, contesting UEFA Champions League ties on Tuesday.
Andoni Iraola and Enzo Maresca are thus the first top-flight bosses in front of the media this week, hosting their pre-match pressers on Monday.
Here are the key injury updates from both press conferences.
MANCHESTER CITY
It’ll be close to Christmas before we see Antoine Semenyo in a City shirt again.
The winger suffered a knee injury in the win over Ipswich Town and faces eight weeks on the sidelines.
“In the first moment, we expected an even worse injury. So, we were more worried but after yesterday’s scan, we feel much better because it’s not so big like we expected. Again, could be eight weeks. So now, in this moment, the most important thing for him is to recover. When he’s back, probably, I don’t know, around December, we have like a new player in terms of energy.” – Enzo Maresca on Antoine Semenyo
Erling Haaland is much less of a concern, at least. The Norwegian was hobbling in the dying embers of the Ipswich match but could even recover for Tuesday’s clash with AEK Athens.
“He can be available. We’ll see. We have a session now. We have some doubts after Saturday’s game and we’ll see. He was quite good yesterday, better. So, we’ll see today.
“For sure, to replace Erling, it’s always difficult, but we have some different options. We see tomorrow. It depends again also a little bit on the game plan but also there is chance that he can be available.
“Phil [Foden] can be one of the solutions. Not the only one. He can be one of the solutions. As you said, he played already in the past in that position, so he can play now again. But again, at the moment, the number nine is Erling!” – Enzo Maresca on Erling Haaland and his potential understudies
Three more City players were forced off on Saturday: Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly, the latter of whom has recurring back issues.
There don’t seem to be many worries about that trio, however.
“The rest, yeah, they are more or less all okay.” – Enzo Maresca
Maresca rang the changes against the Tractor Boys, and we can expect more rotation tomorrow and in the weeks ahead.
“Yeah, we need to pay attention [to players’ workloads]. No doubt. This is the reason why we did some changes against Ipswich. That’s why we need to do some changes tomorrow, to try to manage all the players in the best way, try to keep them fit. Even [then], some things happen, things that you cannot control, like Antoine’s injury.” – Enzo Maresca on rotating players, especially those who have been at the World Cup this summer
LIVERPOOL
Dominik Szoboszlai (hamstring) and Jeremie Frimpong (muscle) rejoined the injury list on Saturday. Szoboszlai missed out in Gameweek 6 before returning to the starting XI against Brentford, only for that appearance to be cut short after half an hour with a recurrence of the same issue.
“Jeremie Frimpong’s [issue] is a new muscle injury. It happened in the second, third minute that he was playing. Difficult to predict. We will have to wait till he recovers but it’s going to be difficult, I think, before the [November] break. We will try.
“Dom Szoboszlai is different. It’s not a new injury. I think it’s in the same place that was causing him problems last week. He hasn’t worsened the injury but probably we have to be a little bit more patient till he recovers fully. But it’s not like it’s something that now he has to wait a lot of time to come back; he’s more or less in the same situation he was last week. We need more patience with him.” – Andoni Iraola
Long-term absentees Hugo Ekitike (Achilles), Conor Bradley (knee) and Giovanni Leoni (knee) are still out.
Ryan Gravenberch served a one-match ban in Gameweek 7 but is now available on both the domestic and continental fronts.
Andoni Iraola suggested that he may rotate against Villarreal on Tuesday.
“I am thinking of putting the best starting XI [out] I can against Villarreal, but maybe it’s not the one you are thinking because some players are not fresh enough. Probably it’s better that someone who is more fresh should start.” – Andoni Iraola
