Man City drop fresh team news hint vs Bournemouth as Guardiola makes injury 'emergency' admission

Manchester City could call upon a handful of academy players again at Bournemouth as their injury problems mount.

City took a few youngsters to Tottenham this week, giving a start to Nico O'Reilly and bringing Jacob Wright and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey off the bench. Winger Farid Alfa-Ruprecht was also in the squad as Pep Guardiola leant upon some of the youngsters who have been around the first team this season.

It seems as though three of those players will be involved again, with a hint dropped via the under-21s' team sheet in the Premier League 2 on Friday night.

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City faced Norwich looking to continue their fine start to the season, having beaten Grimsby on penalties in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night. O'Reilly, Wright, Simpson-Pusey and Alfa-Ruprecht missed that clash before their involvement at Tottenham the following day.

And three of those four players were missing again from the Norwich teamsheet, raising the chances of them travelling down to Bournemouth with the first team. Alfa-Ruprecht was the only youngster involved.

Earlier on Friday, Guardiola declared an 'emergency' in his squad, even if he refused to use the injury list as an excuse. Speaking about the likelihood of calling upon the academy again, he said: "We use [the youngsters] because we're in an emergency in certain positions. Some of them we trust like in the past. That's why the academy is there. We don't have another option."

Guardiola had also said that he will assess the likes of Savinho, Manu Akanji, Josko Gvardiol and Ruben Dias on Saturday morning, while Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku are still expected to be out.