Departed Villa captain injured on City debut

Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart has stated that the team’s friendly defeat to Real Madrid leaves them with plenty of work to do ahead of the new season.

Fabian Delph was injured 18 minutes into his debut as Manchester City lost 4-1 to Real Madrid in the worldwide Champions Cup in Melbourne.

Delph, who transferred to Man City under controversial circumstances having previously pledged his allegiance to Aston Villa for the coming season, will likely have made a lot of Villa fans’ days with the image of him lying on the grass, medical staff attending to what appears to be a pulled hamstring.

City will now face an anxious wait to determine the severity of Delph’s injury, with their opening Premier League match against West Bromwich Albion just over two weeks away.

To make matters worse for City, they were 2-0 down within a few minutes of Delph going off, with 16-year-old centre-back Cameron Humphreys given a real lesson in top class attacking play.

Just before half-time, Pepe powered in a third goal with a thumping header from Isco’s corner as City’s defence – without skipper Vincent Kompany who has travelled home for the birth of his child – once again went missing.

Hart parried the ball but it went backwards and over the line, with his scrambled efforts to scoop it clear in vain.

“It’s pre-season at the end of the day, we can’t get too wrapped up in the result”.

“We didn’t play very well”, BBC Sport quotes Hart as saying.

“Tomorrow we will get a diagnosis from the doctor but he has a problem in his hamstring – it is hard to know as the doctor needs at least 48 hours”.