Man City suffer De Bruyne injury scare as star taken off ahead of Arsenal clash

Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne had to come off in Wednesday night's match Inter Milan after he appeared to pick up an injury.

The Belgian playmaker received treatment after going down towards the end of the first half after looking uncomfortable. And despite playing on until the break, he did not re-emerge from the tunnel for the second half.

Though it remains to be seen if his early substitution was just a precaution, if De Bruyne is injured it would be a major headache for City and Pep Guardiola, who host title rivals Arsenal in their next Premier League fixture on Sunday.

De Bruyne left the field with the score goalless after an even 45 minutes of play. The match is a repeat of the 2023 final, which was won by City.

It was announced prior to kick off at The Etihad that Arsenal would be without captain Martin Odegaard for Sunday's match, with the Norway international set for a spell on the sidelines due to a "significant" ankle injury.

But while that may have buoyed City, the prospect of locking horns with Mikel Arteta's side without De Bruyne in tow would come as a major blow.

Speaking ahead of the match, Guardiola insisted that Sunday's huge fixture was not a factor in his team selection. When he was asked how much influence it had pre-match, he replied: "Zero."

De Bruyne was plagued by injury last term but has started the 2024/25 campaign in fine form and was lauded by Guardiola ahead of the Inter match.

After it was put to him that De Bruyne was looking as good as ever, Guardiola replied: “Yeah, I agree. But it’s the same as Erling [Haaland] in all the comments after the game. I said the season starts now and of course, there are a lot of games, started really well, come back good, especially in the Premier League games and the competitions that we had.”