Manchester City are playing against West Ham United on Sunday and are just one more win away from sealing the Premier League title – and there’s good news despite the injury to Ederson.
After beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 on Tuesday night, Manchester City are in a strong position to make history this weekend.
No team has ever won four Premier League titles in a row, but Pep Guardiola‘s side are two points clear at the top now, and a win will ensure it happens.
City came through their game in hand against Spurs on Tuesday with Erling Haaland scoring two goals.
But the team did not come through completely unscathed. While it seems Kevin De Bruyne will be OK for the weekend, one man who won’t be featuring is Ederson.
The club have today said that the Brazilian has fractured his eye socket – but there is good news for City fans…
Stefan Ortega has a brilliant record in the Premier League for Manchester City
Ederson tried to carry on against Spurs on Tuesday after being clattered by Cristian Romero, but the decision was made to replace him after a few minutes.
Today, a City statement read: “Manchester City can confirm that Ederson will miss the final two games of the season due to a small fracture of his eye socket.
“The Brazilian goalkeeper suffered the injury during our 2-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday evening. He has since undergone scans of the affected area that have revealed a small fracture to the right eye socket.”
It means that Stefan Ortega – who was a hero on Tuesday for his brilliant saves from Dejan Kulusevski and Heung-min Son – will replace him against West Ham and Manchester United in the FA Cup final.
Many City fans will have zero issues with this, with Ortega having established himself as one of the top number two goalkeepers in the world.
And encouragingly for City, the German’s record in the Premier League is absolutely stellar.
As per BBC Sport, the star has made 11 appearances in the competition to date and has never been on the losing side. He has nine wins to his name, and two draws.
Furthermore, Ortega has kept five clean sheets in the Premier League, conceding eight goals.
City’s good luck charm
So Ederson cannot play against West Ham and therefore Ortega will feature.
It was a pretty nasty injury the Brazilian suffered and thankfully it was ‘only’ a fractured eye socket in the end. It is always very worrying when a player’s head is involved and when you see reactions like what we saw from Mateo Kovacic and Bernardo Silva when Ederson was on the ground.
It’s a shame his season is now done, but many fans will be quite happy to see Ortega get a couple more chances to play.
As Jamie Redknapp said after the game with Spurs, he is ‘brilliant every single time’ he plays for City, and it will be good to see him in another high-stakes match.
The league title isn’t quite sewn up just yet, so he will need to be on top form.
