Yaya Touré has been ruled out of Manchester City’s trip to Bournemouth on Saturday by a knee injury and is a serious doubt for Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg at Paris Saint-Germain along with Joe Hart.
While Hart is still recovering from the calf problem he suffered in the 1-0 derby defeat to Manchester United before the international break, Touré had been playing for sometime with the injury.
Manuel Pellegrini said: “Touré has some trouble in his knee – the last month he’s been playing with the same problem. I’m not 100% sure but I think it will be difficult for Joe or Yaya to play against PSG.”
There is better news concerning Kevin De Bruyne, who has been out since late January because of a knee ligament injury. The Belgian had scored 12 goals and made 12 assists before suffering the injury late in the Capital One Cup second leg against Everton, and he is now fit enough to be included in Saturday’s squad.
The City manager said: “Kevin worked the whole week without any problem. It’s two months that he couldn’t play but I saw he worked very well without any problem, same with Samir Nasri [who had a hamstring injury], so I hope both of them will be important for the last part of the season.
“At the end of the season when you’ve had so many players playing a lot of games during the whole season it’s important to have fresh players. They are in the squad list because they are ready to play. Maybe not 90 minutes but they can play.”
While Pellegrini confirmed Raheem Sterling will be out for “four or five weeks more” because of a groin injury, the manager is hopeful the outcome of Martin Demichelis’s FA charge for gambling will not be severe.
The central defender has until 5 April to answer the charge he made 12 breaches relating to matches between 22 and 28 January. Pellegrini said: “I spoke with Martin, he told me what he did, we must see what the FA think about that. We must wait for next week. He’s part of the squad he’s always very committed with this project, so if he has made a mistake we will see how important is but I don’t think it’s that serious.”
