Ben Dinnery has warned Manchester City to not rush back Ruben Dias ‘sooner than necessary’.
The Portuguese international has been spotted back on the training pitches after suffering a severe hamstring injury and faces a race against time to be back for the pivotal league meeting with Liverpool.
“Hamstring problems have high recurrence rates. Yes, he’s a pivotal player for Man City, but you don’t want to be rushing him back sooner than necessary,” the commentator, who runs the Premier Injuries website, told Football Insider.
“They are fairly well stocked in that area. They have got a number of players who can do a job.
“You look at that fixture against Burnley and they will think they have more than enough to get through that.
“It will be that Liverpool game that they are looking to target. Dias shouldn’t be too far away.
“We have seen him back on the training pitches, although a return to training is by no means necessarily a return to play.”
The Merseysiders find themselves only a point behind the league leaders after capitalising on the Cityzens’ prior poor results, which has led to an increased emphasis on the upcoming meeting in Manchester.
Though Pep Guardiola’s outfit are arguably stronger with the 24-year-old available, we certainly have no wish to see any of our opponents’ key men out of action ahead of our visit to the Etihad.
Certainly, with us possessing arguably the deepest squad we’ve had in the last few decades, let alone during the Jurgen Klopp era, we should feel more than confident in the options at our disposal.
It’ll be a huge challenge for us in April, particularly with the heavy fixture list to contend with, but there’s no telling what kind of impact leapfrogging City in the tile race could have on the rest of our season.
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