LONDON: Manchester City forward Antoine Semenyo is set to be sidelined for up to eight weeks with a leg injury, manager Enzo Maresca said on Monday.
Ghana international Semenyo sustained the injury during last week’s 3-2 win over Ipswich, as Premier League leaders City made it seven wins from seven matches this season.
Speaking ahead of City’s Champions League encounter against AEK Athens at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday, Maresca was upbeat about the fitness of Erling Haaland, Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly, but was less optimistic about Semenyo.
“The rest are more or less all OK,” he said. “The only one who will be out for probably eight weeks is Antoine.”
However, Semenyo has undergone a scan which Maresca said was “not as bad as we expected”.
Star striker Haaland was seen limping after the final whistle against Ipswich.
“He can be available. We will see, as we have a (training) session now. We have some doubts after Sunday’s game. He was quite good yesterday, better. So we will see today,” Maresca said.
“First of all, losing Antoine or any player is not good for us.
“Then, in terms of Erling, we have said that we can use Antoine as a No. 9, but we also have different players whom we are going to try and find new solutions with.
“We will see again. At the moment, it is Erling. Why do we need to think about a different No. 9 when Erling is there?
“Then, if something happens and we need a different plan or a different No. 9, we will see,” the Italian added.
Maresca has become the first manager to win his opening seven Premier League games at a new club.
However, City’s impressive start to the campaign comes against the backdrop of the club being found guilty of more than 100 charges of breaching financial rules in English football’s top flight. City deny all the charges, while Maresca has repeatedly insisted that he “trusts the club completely”.
City were beaten 4-2 by reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain in their previous Champions League outing, but Maresca insisted there was no question of protecting players from potential injury risks against AEK.
“It is a huge game tomorrow for us,” said the Italian.
“It is a Champions League game. Unfortunately, we lost the last one. We need to win games, and we are going to try to win this one with our best players at this moment.”