Just in: I am so excited as two City players to miss Newcastle clash as revised De Bruyne injury return date set

Manchester City could still be without three key players for the Premier League visit of Newcastle on Saturday.

John Stones has suffered an injury setback and will miss Manchester City’s Premier League clash with Newcastle on

Saturday, as will Bernardo Silva – while Kevin De Bruyne looks set to be out for longer than first feared.

Stones, Bernardo and Ruben Dias missed the Super Cup win in Athens on Wednesday and could well miss the

Newcastle fixture this weekend.

Bernardo didn’t travel to Greece through illness, while Dias was not officially in the travelling party but was with

the City squad against Sevilla and named on the bench – he has trained since.

After being ruled out last week vs Burnley through concussion, Dias couldn’t play in the Super Cup and he was never

going to be introduced despite being named on the bench.

Stones also missed the Burnley win with a minor injury and he was an unused substitute against Sevilla as Nathan

Ake and Manu Akanji combined in defence for the second game in succession.

Now, though, Pep Guardiola has confirmed that Stones has suffered a setback that will rule him out this weekend,

while Bernardo may not recover from illness in time. Dias remains a doubt.

Guardiola said: “John is out, Bernardo is out. Ruben, I don’t know.” He later clarified that “maybe Ruben is fit”. He

also stated that Stones’ issue is a muscular one.

More worryingly, Guardiola also gave a revised timeframe for De Bruyne’s injury lay-off with a hamstring issue.

Having previously stated that the Belgian would be out for three to four months, he said that De Bruyne is now out

for “four to five” months.

With that new timescale, De Bruyne looks set to be out until the new year in a further blow to City’s start to the

season.