Mateo Kovacic ruled out for two months in Man City transfer blow as Pep Guardiola is left with just three midfielders

PEP GUARDIOLA has revealed Mateo Kovacic will be out for another two months amid the latest blow to his plans for the new season.

He arrived in Palermo for Manchester City’s only pre-season friendly with the bad news that Ballon d’Or holder Rodri won’t be fit enough to start any of the first three Prem games.

The holding midfielder has recovered from the ACL injury that side-lined him for almost all of City’s fall from grace last season, ending in a desperate fight to make the Champions League.

But Kovacic would have at least been able to partner new £46.5M arrival Tijjani Reijnders – except the Croatian star is taking far longer than predicted to recover from the Achilles tendon surgery he underwent in May.

Boss Pep also has a worry over Phil Foden, left behind in Manchester with an ankle injury as he confirmed : “We have only three midfield players for now.

“Kova is injured until September/October, Rodri is not ready to start the first three games before the international break and Phil, it depends, although we have one week until the start.”

After last season’s nightmare without the hugely influential Rodri the plan was to pair him with Reinders in a central midfield axis that would provide the stability that had been so badly lacking.

Now Nico Gonzalez, who has been used very sparingly since his move from Porto, could become crucial.

Veteran Ilkay Gundogan, 34, had been expected to be used only as back-up going into the last year of his contract, but Guardiola may now be forced to turn to the Treble winner.

Guardiola could be considered to have taken a risk by staging only one public warm-up game before Saturday’s big kick-off against Wolves.

Since returning from the failed Club World Cup bid in June, the only other game City have played was a 1-0 win over Preston behind closed doors.

But Guardiola nevertheless went into the friendly marking the 125 anniversary of City Football Group sister club Palermo unconcerned, saying : “It’s been really good.

“We’ve got some niggles, players coming back with some injuries, but the mood is quite similar to what we were living at the Club World Cup.

“Maybe we missed some friendly games to prepare and arrive the first three games against Wolves, Spurs and Brighton a little bit better.

“But we needed to rest and decided to make more training sessions than play games.”