Doku set to miss Manchester derby as Maresca offers cautious O'Reilly return hope

Jeremy Doku looks set to sit out at least the first five matches of Manchester City’s season, including Sunday’s derby at Old Trafford, after the winger was left behind as City travelled to Porto for their Champions League opener. Nico O’Reilly, who pulled out of the warmup ahead of City’s win over Coventry at the weekend, is a more realistic prospect for the United fixture.

Neither player trained on Monday before the squad departed for Portugal, but manager Enzo Maresca offered contrasting assessments of the pair’s fitness. On Doku, who has been sidelined since sustaining an injury in the Community Shield, Maresca was measured in his optimism.

“He is back. I don’t know if he can be available for the weekend, but slowly, slowly he is back,” the City boss said.

The Belgium international had initially been expected to miss only a couple of weeks, but the timeline has stretched considerably, leaving him short of match sharpness even as he edges closer to a return to training.

O’Reilly’s situation is more encouraging. The injury that forced him out of the Coventry warmup was described as not serious, and Maresca indicated the young midfielder could be in contention for the derby at Old Trafford.

City enter the week carrying the weight of a club-record summer outlay of nearly £430 million, a figure that has amplified expectations heading into the new Champions League campaign. Maresca, however, is resisting the pressure to project too far ahead.

“I said many times when you are Manchester City the expectations are always higher,” he said. “I like more to be focused on the day by day. It is very complicated to think where we could be in February, March, April. For me the most important thing is to see that we are improving game after game and then we will see.”

City face Porto in the first of their Champions League league-phase fixtures before turning their attention to the derby, a fixture that will test the squad’s depth regardless of how the injury picture develops.