Manchester City center back Nathan Ake joined the club in 2020 from Bournemouth and quickly blossomed into one of the best man-markers and overall defensive players in world football under Pep Guardiola.
An important part of arguably the best defense in European football, Ake has unfortunately went down with an injury, leaving Manchester City short-handed for their upcoming slate of matches.
According to Guardiola, via City Xtra, Nathan Ake will miss seven total matches for Manchester City coming out of the September international fixtures, as the Dutch defender will disappointingly be unable to play until the international matches in October.
The 29-year-old pitch was stretchered off the pitch in a match over the “break” against Germany, and he was observed in tears, clutching his hamstring. So missing seven games, while significant, may actually be a case of Man City avoiding an even bigger blow.
That means Ake will be out for Man City against Brentford, Inter Milan in the Champions League in a 2023 Final rematch, Premier League title rivals Arsenal, and another Champions League-caliber club in Newcastle to close out the month of September.
He will then miss two games in October against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League and then Fulham in the Premier League.
Then, it will be the international fixtures in October. That actually is only six matches, so the seventh match would be on Oct. 20 right after the international action, which would be Wolves.
Losing Ake against Newcastle, Inter, and Arsenal will be very tough, especially Arsenal, but the other games should be manageable for Man City.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. His work has been featured in ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, and other major outlets. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.