Manchester City may have routed Brighton on Saturday but that victory may now be bitter-sweet with Aymeric Laporte going out after just 33 minutes into the game leaving the manager to bring on an holding midfielder Fernandinho in his replacement.
The citizens trashed Brighton hover 4-0 on GW5 with Sergio Aguero, Kelvin De-Bruyne, and Bernardo Silva all getting on the score sheet. De-Bruyne scored the opener after just 71 seconds, Aguero made 2:0 and 3:0 scoring at both halves of the game. Silva came on as substitute and scored after just 17 seconds of being on the pitch.
Larporte injury came off the back of a tackle involving the Frenchman and Brighton defender Adam Webster.
For the 24-year old, it’s worse as he was due for his French national team call-up debut next week.
Laporte’s injury leaves Nicolas Otamendi as City’s only fit senior centre-back. Vincent Kompany left in the summer and John Stones has not featured since the opening day of the season because of a muscle injury.
“I think he is in the hospital ” Guardiola told a news conference after the match. “It doesn’t look good. Exactly what he has I don’t know. The e doctor will call me but I think it will be a while.”
He was replaced against Brighton with midfielder Fernandinho and Guardiola is ready to deploy the Brazilian in defence again if Laporte is sidelined long term.
“He is a holding midfielder, everyone knows it, me included but I think he has the conditions to play there,” said Guardiola.
“The problems we have there as a situation, he is going to adapt. He is intelligent, fast, strong in the headers, in the build-up, he has the quality to see what happens in front. He can play in both positions.”
Despite Laporte injury, city ran away with the victory in a game that was largely comfortable.