MANCHESTER -- Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure will sit out the home game against Newcastle on Saturday, meaning the 2014 Premier League champions will be without their captain and vice-captain.
Skipper Vincent Kompany and Toure are both sidelined as City -- who have been without up to 11 injured players in recent weeks -- will be missing five members of their squad.
Samir Nasri, who has a hamstring problem, Gael Clichy, who underwent ankle surgery, and Fabian Delph, who has suffered two hamstring injuries, are also unable to play.
Toure suffered a minor hamstring injury in last week's 4-1 defeat to Tottenham and was only able to play for 45 minutes in Wednesday's 2-1 Champions League win against Borussia Monchengladbach.
Manager Manuel Pellegrini has ruled the 32-year-old out of the Newcastle game, saying: "Yaya has a problem with his hamstring and he cannot play."
Skipper Kompany was always scheduled to miss the match because of a calf problem but City have also received some welcome news, with Eliaquim Mangala, Wilfried Bony and Kelechi Iheanacho all back in contention.
Centre-back Mangala has missed City's last three games with a calf injury but is available again to offer competition to Martin Demichelis and Nicolas Otamendi.
"Mangala is in the squad list, also Kelechi and also Bony, the three of them," Pellegrini said.
Neither Kelechi nor Bony have featured in City's last three games either, but their return to action gives City more backup for top scorer Sergio Aguero.
Pellegrini hopes City's injury crisis will come to an end in the forthcoming international break after he was without an entire team of players for the 4-1 Capital One Cup win at struggling Sunderland.
"It is not normal what we have in the last weeks," he said. "Against Sunderland we had 11 players injured. After that we had an average of seven -- eight, seven or six -- so I think it is too much and I hope in this international break most of them will be fit."
Goalkeeper Joe Hart was only on the bench for the defeat at Spurs, when his deputy Willy Caballero was at fault for Toby Alderweireld's goal but returned to save a penalty in Monchengladbach on Wednesday.
Pellegrini said it would have been a risk to select the Englishman at White Hart Lane, adding: "I don't think he was able to play against Tottenham after just one day's work and with pain in his back.
"I don't think that was the moment when we had such an important game against Borussia on Wednesday. Now he will return to his normal position in the starting 11."
Newcastle have only taken three points this season, but Pellegrini is wary of a team who have held both league leaders Manchester United and defending champions Chelsea to draws.
"We face a difficult team, Newcastle, who played very well against Chelsea and they played very well here in Manchester against United," he added.
"We have to make a good game if we want to win."