Semenyo ruled out for eight weeks as City face Haaland fitness call

Antoine Semenyo will miss around eight weeks with a knee injury, ruling him out of Manchester City’s Champions League match against AEK Athens and Saturday’s Premier League trip to Aston Villa. City’s immediate attacking concern is compounded by Erling Haaland’s uncertain fitness after the striker limped off against Ipswich Town.

Semenyo’s scan brought better news than Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca first feared. “In the first moment we expected an even worse injury, we were more worried, but after yesterday’s scan we feel much better,” Maresca said. He added that recovery was now the priority for the winger.

The injury comes early in Semenyo’s City spell. He has made two league appearances this season without scoring or assisting, so his absence is less of a blow to the team’s current league output than the uncertainty around Haaland. But eight weeks without an attacking option will test Maresca’s choices across a substantial stretch of the calendar. The manager said losing any player was “not good” for the team.

Haaland scored twice in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Ipswich, with Phil Foden opening the scoring, before limping away from the Etihad. He has five league goals in seven games. Maresca said Haaland was “quite good yesterday, better” and could be available for AEK, but the club would assess him after a training session.

Maresca said the decision on Haaland would depend partly on City’s game plan and that the team had “some different options” to replace him. Resting the striker is not a simple call: City lost their previous Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain, and Maresca described Tuesday’s game as “huge”, saying City needed to win games.

City remain top of the Premier League with 21 points from seven matches, all victories, and a goal difference of +12. Semenyo’s injury does not alter that position, but the AEK match is an immediate test of City’s attacking options while Haaland’s availability is still in question. Maresca said Nico O’Reilly and Mateo Kovacic were “more or less all okay.”