Philippe Clement confirmed the news we all dreaded during this afternoon’s Friday press conference at Colney:
“Mo Toure is set for a spell on the sidelines of four to six weeks.”
Just when City fans thought things on the injury front couldn’t get any worse…
Addressing the media ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Leicester, the City boss revealed that scans on the striker’s groin injury showed a significant tear.
“I knew with only Mo and Mathias [Kvistgaarden] there, if I had one injury, we would be in trouble,”
Clement, calm and collected as ever, still cut a frustrated figure as he passed on the news that most of us expected but still feared.
But, as ever, he wasn’t about to feel sorry for himself or the club and, instead, emphasised that while it clearly isn’t the scenario he wanted, the club must now be “pragmatic” to navigate a gruelling run of fixtures without him.
It is, however mature Big Phil chooses to be about it, very much in the ‘couldn’t make it up’ envelope.
Just as we had overcome the loss of Josh Sargent, after his epic bout of toy-throwing, and the subsequent loss of his free-scoring replacement, Jovon Makama, with some uplifting performances from our favourite Australian, we now have to prep for life without him.
To lose a player who, after all the above, netted five times in his first four starts, is plain cruel. To see him pull up in pain and then limp off just nine minutes into the Sheffield Wednesday win felt like a proper blow to the guts to all of us in the Y’Army.
Striker crisis…
It goes without saying that the options are not plentiful. Even those clubs with deep pockets and squad depth we can only dream of, like Ipswich, would struggle with the unavailability of their three main strikers.
Makama was desperately unfortunate, Sargent was desperately pathetic, Toure was desperately unlucky, but it does mean that opportunity now knocks for our one remaining senior forward: Mathias Kvistgaarden.
And let’s not forget, he did the business against Wednesday for the hour he was on the pitch. And he’ll lead the line at the King Power tomorrow. But the margin for error is now non-existent.
One more tweak or knock and Clement’s cupboard isn’t just bare—it’s completely empty.
“Pragmatism” and the Medic experiment
Clement’s favorite word right now is pragmatism, and we saw exactly what that meant on Wednesday night.
Seeing Jakov Medic thrown into the fray as emergency number nine was one of those “had to see it to believe it” moments. The buzz from the Carrow Road crowd was extraordinary, as was the support the Croatian received from the Barclay.
While it’s easy for us to laugh about having “Medic up top,” Clement was quick to point out that the Croatian has played there in his academy days, and has been clinical in recent finishing sessions at Colney.
But, it has to be said, he very much looked like a centre-back playing as a centre-forward on Wednesday, albeit caveated with the fact he’s played very little football of late.
If he is Clement’s plan B – and it looks like he is in the absence of any alternatives – they will have to adapt the way they attack depending on whether it’s he or Kvistgaarden. But in a spell that sees us face Leicester (a), Leeds (a) (in FA Cup), Sheffield United (h), and Preston (h), Big Phil has made it clear: he’ll do whatever it takes to grind out the results.
Can we weather this latest storm?
The 2026 form table shows we’ve been one of the best sides in the league since the turn of the year, all against the backdrop of an ever-growing injury list (which is now 15-strong). But Toure had become a massive part of that. The responsibility now shifts.
As the young Aussie starts his rehab, we need the likes of Kvistgaarden, Paris Maghoma, and Ali Ahmed to step into the breach. It’s not just for the young Dane that opportunity knocks.
But there’s no escaping; it’s a massive test for the culture Clement has built in the short time he has been here. So far, we’ve finally clawed our way up to 17th and put daylight between us and the bottom three.
The goal now is even simpler: survive the next six weeks, get to the 50-point mark, and pray we don’t end up with Kellen Fisher as our latest emergency striker.
OTBC.
