This weekend, the Premier League will host the second leg of the season, with defending champions Manchester City sitting at home to the Etihad against city rivals Manchester United. However, at the beginning of the war, Manchester City suffered a major blow, and their defensive core Ruben Dias will be absent for 4-6 weeks due to a leg injury, which is undoubtedly very bad news for Manchester City, which is undoubtedly a very bad news for Manchester City, who are fighting on the third line.
Rubendiás was injured in the FA Cup match against St. Petersburg United when he was replaced after the first half and was diagnosed with a hamstring injury, as the saying goes, a hundred days of injury, and the Portuguese centre-back could not escape the fate of injury this time. This season, Díaz has played 34 games for Manchester City in all competitions, including 32 starts, contributing 2 goals and 4 assists, including 2 goals and 3 assists in 25 Premier League games and 24 starts, averaging 1.00 steals, 0.80 interceptions and 2.24 clearances per game, with a pass success rate of 94%, which is an indispensable defensive core of Manchester City.
Now Manchester City in the Premier League one more game ahead of Liverpool 6 points, but the latter has won 11 consecutive wins in all competitions and 14 unbeaten, the chase momentum is very fierce, Manchester City will be overtaken if they are not careful, the road to defending the title can be described as walking on thin ice, fortunately, their March schedule is not too tense, in addition to the head-on confrontation with Manchester United, the Champions League opponent Portugal Sports lost too badly in the first leg, and the Premier League 30 rounds of matches with Brighton were postponed. All that remains is round 29 away against Crystal Palace and the FA Cup quarter-finals against Southampton.
The most crucial is naturally the Battle of King's Hill in the Premier League with Liverpool on April 10, when whether Rubendiaz can return is still unknown. But even if he can't come back, Guardiola still has two big centre-backs, Laporte and Stones, both of whom have performed well in previous games, and with them, City's defensive strength will not drop too much.
In fact, Ruben Dias is free of charge due to injury, the most injured is not Manchester City, but the Portuguese national team, because on the 25th of this month, the Qatar World Cup qualifiers will start the European zone play-offs, Portugal will play against the strong Turkish team, if they can qualify, they will compete with the winners of the European Championship between Italy and Macedonia for a World Cup ticket, Turkey itself is already quite strong, and the European Cup champion Italy is extremely good at two-legged knockout matches. Even if Portugal is full of talents, it is difficult to say that it will definitely advance. At this juncture, Ruben Dias was injured again, which was simply a leak in the house and the overnight rain.
Rubendiaz started all 4 games in the European Cup, played 90 minutes in 7 World Preliminaries, is the absolute main force of the Portuguese team's backline, in the center-back position, Portugal is far less manned than Manchester City, 38-year-old Pepe and 37-year-old Fonte are still players they need to rely on, so once Rubendias is absent, Portugal can only rely on two veterans to support the defense, which is simply fierce.
Cristiano Ronaldo is 37 years old, this will be his last World Cup, he certainly does not want to miss it, but now, the Portuguese superstar really has to be prepared for the four big empty, not just the club.