Manchester City are officially in an injury crisis with five of their big stars now out for an unknown period.
The crisis deepened against St Polten in the Women’s Champions League with captain Alex Greenwood stretchered off the pitch with a suspected knee injury. Fans had to wait nervously for an update with concerns the injury is an ACL rupture.
However, the club have now confirmed Greenwood has had surgery on a medial collateral ligament in her knee which she is now rehabbing.
Manchester City: What has Gareth Taylor said about injuries?
City have also recently been without Bunny Shaw. Vivianne Miedema and Lauren Hemp are also out with knee injuries, while Chloe Kelly is returning to play after concussion.
Manager Gareth Taylor gave updates on the fresh injury concerns to Shaw and Greenwood.
Taylor said on Jamaica international Shaw: “I’m not too sure [what the injury is], we’ve had multiple scans on the area that she has the issue with, we’ll have to wait and find out. I don’t think we’ll see her until the new year which is a shame for us because she was in a really good vein of form.”
He had said on England international Greenwood, who won the Euros in 2022, before her injury was confirmed: “We’ll have to assess. Alex doesn’t normally come off unless it’s an issue, hopefully it’s nothing too bad because we could do without it, we’re missing so many players.”
City are also currently without Naomi Layzell and Sandy McIver. He added: “We’re really up against it player-wise.”
The club do not have anymore games left of 2024 with the WSL break now in place. The 14/15 December was the last round of the WSL until the league returns on 17 January.
The final games of 2024 saw City record back-to-back defeats to Everton and Barcelona.
The loss to Barca, which is FourFourTwo’s view would have been a lot worse had it not been for the saves of goalkeeper Khiara Keating, means City no longer top their group in the European competition.
The impact of this means they will face one of the group winners in the quarter-finals. The draw for those fixtures is taking place on the 7 February.
Barca are one of the group winners with Chelsea, Arsenal and Lyon the other three.
