Pep Guardiola knows exactly why Man City have so many injuries - but there is one thing he won't do

There is one thing Pep Guardiola absolutely won't do in response to Manchester City's back-to-back defeats and ongoing injury crisis.

Guardiola cut a frustrated figure in his technical area as City were deservedly beaten by a brilliant Bournemouth side. 'We couldn't handle their intensity', bemoaned the manager after the game, while countering that their 32-game unbeaten run in the Premier League since their last defeat 11 months ago was 'incredible'.

City welcomed back three players from injury, while two more recovered from knocks and played through the pain - but Guardiola also lost Ruben Dias and John Stones to injury. Already this season, 12 of his 20 senior outfield players have missed games through injury.

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That is 59 instances of a senior player being unavailable through injury already this term across 15 games, rising to 60 if Erling Haaland's personal leave in the Carabao Cup win over Watford is included - an average of four outfield players missing per game. And Guardiola has had to rest other players to cope with the ongoing injury issues - it was Erling Haaland at Tottenham and Rico Lewis at Bournemouth.

Kyle Walker says he rushed himself back against Bournemouth to rally his depleted teammates in their hour of need.

City have now lost back-to-back fixtures for the first time in 13 months, and face a tricky week away to Sporting in the Champions League before another long trip to Brighton in the Premier League.

But Guardiola refuses to make excuses for their form, and will not fall back on injuries when looking for reasons behind the Tottenham and Bournemouth reverses. He certainly won't complain about the wider fixture schedule even if he feels it has played a pivotal role in their injury crisis.

"If we had five more days to prepare we would have been better, or maybe not, who knows? I do not want to put it down for the calendar." Guardiola reflected. "Now it looks like [an excuse] because we lost a game. The reality is [Bournemouth] won, I congratulate them.

"In the previous seasons we played a lot of games. Maybe if we go to the World Cup and play in the last stages we are going to play almost 70 games. It is like the NBA but in the NBA they have four months holidays and we have three days.

There are plenty of examples of fatigue from last season resulting in injuries this term. Phil Foden said that was why he missed a handful of games recently, and put Rodri's season-ending injury down to the same f-word. Walker, Kevin De Bruyne and others have picked up small injuries which have been exacerbated by the 11-month season that went before this one.

"It comes from the previous seasons because you have injuries. It’s individual, it’s normal," the manager continued. "It’s going to happen and we have to handle it and have the perfect amount of training sessions to the games. Our physical condition is to arrive as well as possible to playing games.

"We cannot do anything and we cannot practice. It’s the same as previous seasons but when you are winning a lot and the players say ‘wow’. The body is the body and we have to accept it and handle it in the best way and learn from today and keep going.

"It’s the first Premier League game losing in 2024 and we are in November - it’s unbelievable. We have done it incredible but we have to calm the circumstances. We have to do it and learn from this and improve."