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Broken Season: Why Manchester City are just one injury away from self destruction


Manchester City have been knocked out of the Caraboa Cup by Newcastle United, a front-page headline that will certainly get the attention of the football world and a retraction from City fans.

Losing to Newcastle United was forthcoming, Pep Guardiola played cautiously and refused to introduce his super striker Elring Haaland who certainly would've scored or created spaces for others to score.

 But knowing how fiercely contested the match was, bringing him in could end catastrophically. The City's season will be interrupted in a matter of minutes by an injury to Erling Haaland. 

The Norwegian's so good, Manchester City won't be in a position to reach the maximum of two goals per game without him. Haaland has scored 55 goals in 54 games, a frightening statistic that is about to get even more terrifying with Kevin De Bruyne's return from his lengthy injury.


Like the rest of his injured teammates, De Bruyne is currently suffering from an exploit from last season. Manchester City played 63 games last season; they had only 3 weeks' rest before the start of the new campaign and lost one of their key players in Ilkay Gundogan to Barcelona. Gundogan's replacements Matheus Neues and Kevin Philips are both good players, but they're not as good as the German star, as Guardiola recently explained.

Strangly, this current season is a repeat of the last two seasons in which Liverpool's goal was to win all four titles but ended up winning just the FA Cup and the Carabola Cup. The next follow season, players suffered injuries and fatigue before been dumped out of every competition. 

To top it up, Liverpool finished outside the top four, they finished 5th. This unwelcomed retrogression forced the club to rebuild the entire midfield by letting Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, James Milner and others leave. 

City are facing similar fate, but the only difference is that they still have a fit and inform Erling Haaland to cover up the crack. He scores goals which win games. His fitness is the only glue holding the team together and Guardiola know this which is why he is cautious about using him..

Off course it hurts to get knocked out of the Caraboa Cup as Pep Guardiola clearly showed by remonstrating against the referee but, it feels better watching Erling Haaland trudge down the dugout unhurt. 














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