Lampard set to miss Manchester derby

Frank Lampard is likely to miss the Manchester derby but team-mate Samir Nasri is fit again for Sunday’s clash at the Etihad Stadium.

Nasri, who has missed Manchester City’s last seven games after undergoing groin surgery in September, is set to make his comeback against Newcastle in Wednesday’s League Cup tie.

Lampard, who suffered a thigh injury in the 4-1 win over Tottenham, may be in contention to figure again when City host CSKA Moscow in the Champions League next week.

Frank Lampard has scored four goals since arriving on loan at Manchester City in the summer © Getty Images

Manuel Pellegrini said in a news conference: “The injury situation is just Frank Lampard [is out] with his muscle injury. I don’t think he will be fit this weekend but maybe next week he can be.

“Samir Nasri is working with normality and he is in the squad list. All the other players in the squad are fit.”

Pellegrini will wait before determining if Nasri will start but has ruled out using him for the whole game.

He added: “I haven’t decided who will start yet. Samir is just coming back from an important injury. He’s not ready for 90 minutes but I’m sure he will have some minutes tomorrow.”

City are the League Cup holders after beating Sunderland in last season’s final to secure Pellegrini his first piece of silverware, with the club going on to win the Premier League title 10 weeks later.

“It is very important for the club to win trophies,” Pellegrini said. “It doesn’t matter which competition we are playing. We are trying to win the four competitions in the same way. As I said last year, always winning a title at Wembley has extra things, [it is] maybe the most important stadium in the world with 80,000 people seeing, so always is very important.”

City lost 2-1 at West Ham on Saturday to leave them third in the table, six points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea, but Pellegrini is not concerned and pointed out they were four places worse off at the equivalent stage of last season.

He added: “Last year there was exactly the same criticism: that we must change our way to play, that we cannot play in that way, that we don’t know how to play away. Of the first 18 points we just won four away.

“This year this was the first defeat in the six or seven games we play away so things change but we are always concerned to improve.

“Every point you drop is more difficult to arrive at the top of the table. But if you review the table position last year, we were in seventh position in this moment with 16 points, one behind our points [total] in this season. There are 87 points more to fight for.”

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