Manchester City add 19-year-old midfielder to senior squad for Champions League clash as injury problems mount | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City have added a member of the club’s under-19s squad to their senior team for Wednesday night’s Champions League clash.

The change to their matchday squad comes as Guardiola and his coaching staff continue to handle a number of injury problems and fitness doubts in the lead up to their latest outing in European competition.

Kevin De Bruyne and Kyle Walker have already been ruled out of contention for the visit of Sparta Prague, despite the former being present in recent first-team training sessions. Walker is understood to be recovering from a knee injury sustained on international duty.

Pep Guardiola was also without both Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish during Manchester City’s final training session before the meeting with the Czech club, with reasons for their respective absences remaining unknown at this stage.

In light of those absences, in addition to Oscar Bobb and Rodri’s ongoing recovery processes, the Premier League champions have made a change to their matchday squad in the hours leading up to confirmed team news from the Etihad Stadium.

As highlighted by the Manchester Evening News’ Joe Bray, Nico O’Reilly is absent for Manchester City’s under-19 squad in UEFA Youth League on Wednesday afternoon, having been added to the club’s senior squad for the visit to Sparta Prague to the Etihad Stadium.

That is as per confirmation from UEFA ahead of the game, whilst all of Jacob Wright, Jaden Heskey and Farid Alfa-Ruprecht all start for Manchester City’s Academy squad in UEFA Youth League action at the Joie Stadium.

Manchester City will be hoping to maintain their unbeaten start to the Champions League campaign and the season as a whole, having recorded a 0-0 draw against Inter and a 0-4 win over Slovan Bratislava on matchday two.

As for Manchester City’s youth side in the UEFA Youth League, they come into matchday three with one defeat and one win to their name thus far, having lost 2-4 at home to Inter and winning 0-4 away to Bratislava in Slovakia.