Manchester City's record signing Elliot Anderson went off with a knock in his Premier League debut for the club on Sunday against Bournemouth.
A collision with Alex Scott left the midfielder on the ground, clutching his leg and needing medical attention before he went off and got replaced by Mateo Kovacic.
With City's midfield already running thin following Rodri and Tijjani Reijnders exits, Anderson's injury appeared to deepen their midfield woes as fans hoped it's not serious.
Head coach Enzo Maresca has now offered a timely update on the 23-year-old, which could allay all fears of a lengthy injury lay-off. Speaking to the press after the game, he said:
"I think it was cramp. We still have four or five players that are not 100 per cent and he is one of them. Today we had four or five players that arrived very late, 10 days ago, so for them it’s almost still pre-season. Erling [Haaland] is one, Elliot, Marc Guehi, Nico O’Reilly, so it’s complicated. But they’ve done a huge effort to help."
Signed on a club record fee of £116 million from Nottingham Forest, Anderson started off brightly and played a key role in breaking up Bournemouth's plays while threading new through balls from the deep.
However, his influence waned in the second half before going off with the knock that cut his league debut short.
Maresca though, was still impressed with the young Englishman while trusting him to level up his game in the coming days.
"He was very good. Elliot was very good on the ball, very good off the ball. I have a good feeling with Elliot that he’s going to be better and better. Again, for him this was like pre-season. He arrived 10 days ago but the feeling with him is that he’s going to be very good for this club in the future."
Coming into the fixture on the back of a Community Shield humbling by Arsenal, City needed a big performance here but appeared disjointed early on, struggling to adapt to Maresca's tactical system.
It was only after the introduction of Rayan Cherki in the second half that the hosts got into the groove and the Frenchman set up both their late goals on the day.
He brilliantly picked out Marc Guehi inside the box with an inch-perfect delivery off a corner before laying a defense-splitting through ball for Josko Gvardiol to score the winner.
Manchester City return to action on Friday against Crystal Palace.
Add us as a preferred source on Google