Manchester City are growing increasingly concerned about Matija Nastasic’s mystery knee injury as manager Manuel Pellegrini admits the club’s doctors do not know what is wrong with him.
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Nastasic, 20, has not played since the 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on Feb. 3 and Pellegrini, who had twice previously said he thought the defender was a week away from fitness, has now ruled him out for a further two weeks.
And the City boss is particularly worried that the club’s medical staff cannot pinpoint the problem.
He said: “We are concerned because the doctor doesn’t know what happened with him. He did all the tests that he needs but we can’t know what happened with him so we continue taking other opinions. The doctor is in charge of that.”
Asked about the nature of Nastasic’s injury, Pellegrini replied: “We don’t know exactly. The player feels pain inside the knee but nobody knows what is that pain. Nastasic continues with some pain in his knee. He has at least a couple more weeks to recover.”
Nastasic’s absence means City are down to two available central defenders for Saturday’s game against Fulham as captain Vincent Kompany is suspended.
It means Joleon Lescott is likely to partner Martin Demichelis against Fulham, although Javi Garcia, who played the majority of last week’s 2-0 win at Hull in defence after Kompany's dismissal, is another option.
There was, however, some better news as striker Stevan Jovetic, who has been out since limping off against Stoke in February, is available again.
“Jovetic is in the squad list,” Pellegrini said.