Yaya Toure was taken out by Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas during the 10th minute of City’s friendly match held at the MCG

Manchester City played a glamorous friendly match against Real Madrid in front of a crowd of 100,000 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in what was one of the most eye catching fixtures of this close season. Manuel Pellegrini and his boys beat Melbourne City by a solitary goal in their first friendly fixture while their second game saw them beat Roma on penalties after regulation time ended at two goals apiece.

In their third game against Real though, City suffered their first defeat of the pre-season. The defeat is of course not the primary worry right now, rather, the casualties that we suffered in the process are more concerning. What made things even worse though was the injuries that were sustained by new signing Fabian Delph and the evergreen Yaya Toure.

Fabian Delph had to be stretchered off after just 20 minutes as the Englishman suffered a hamstring injury

It’s funny when players end up injuring themselves while taking part in friendly games, the motive behind which is to get their fitness back up. And if you’re a City fan, then I’m sure you’ll know how it feels. Yaya Toure found himself taken out by Real ‘keeper Keylor Navas in the 10th minute of the match and while he did manage to get back on his feet and continue with the game, the City medical staff have decided to send him back to England immediately. The Ivorian midfielder scored our only goal against Real after slotting the ball home from the penalty spot and while he did appear to be fine as the game progressed, the backroom boys at Manchester City have surely identified some issues that need addressing.

There is not much clear news regarding Toure, but Fabian Delph’s case was confirmed by Pellegrini during an interview that he gave after the Real game. Delph injured his hamstring just 20 minutes into the match and was quickly stretchered off to bring his City debut to an unfortunate end. Things do not look too good for him as the Englishman has also been sent back to the United Kingdom for some more testing. At this point of time, his involvement in City’s opening Premier League fixtures looks highly doubtful.

Yaya Toure converted a penalty towards the end of the first half to provide City with some consolation

Manuel Pellegrini also confirmed that he would rest Manchester City’s South American stars for the first set of League fixtures. Sergio Aguero, Martin Demichelis, Pablo Zabaleta and Fernandinho all participated in the Copa America which only concluded in the first week of July. The lads have therefore not been able to take the rest that they so deserved. City’s Chilean boss has thus confirmed that he will refrain from using these players until they’ve completed at least 30 days of rehabilitation and a customized pre-season programme.

So, what all this means is that we’ll be without at least five of our most important players for our games against West Brom, Chelsea, Everton and Watford. The season hasn’t even properly begun and we Cityzens are already under some pressure. How we come through this phase will speak a lot about how the season unfolds and while we fans shouldn’t be drawing too many conclusions from whatever happens during our first few games, Pellegrini will need to make sure that we don’t fall too far away from the leading pack.