Kevin De Bruyne will not be axed from Manchester City’s Champions League squad despite being ruled out for up to 10 weeks.
The Belgium international, who damaged his knee ligaments in Wednesday’s Capital One Cup victory over Everton, is set to miss both legs of the round-of-16 clash with Dynamo Kiev.
And he will face a race to be fit for the quarterfinal legs in early April should City get past the Ukrainian side.
Striker Kelechi Iheanacho was left out of Manuel Pellegrini’s European squad at the start of the season, and the City boss must remove a player from his 25-man squad if he is to include the young Nigerian.
Samir Nasri is a player who could drop out after missing five months of the season with a tendon injury, although the French midfielder could return to action ahead of De Bruyne. It leaves Pellegrini with an awkward decision on who to leave out.
Pellegrini told a news conference: “We have until Monday to make a decision but we hope Kevin will be ready at the end of March, so he will just miss the one round-of-16. So I don’t think we will take him out of the Champions League list.”
Asked if Nasri will miss out, the Chilean added: “We are thinking about that, we are going to make the decision on the last date that we have to send the new list.
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