Manchester City Pep Guardiola will be without a key player in Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho for their Premier League fixture against Arsenal on Thursday after the 32-year-old picked up a hamstring injury in the Carabao Cup final.

This will be the first Premier League fixture that Fernandinho will have missed so far this season after featuring in all of City's 27 league games to this point, starting all but one of them, a feat that only Ederson and Kevin De Bruyne have been able to match.

"Although the initial prognosis suggests that the problem is not serious, there is no estimated return date and [Fernandinho] will miss the game against Arsenal on Thursday," read City's statement.

Pep Guardiola will have to find a way of working around the injury, with Bernardo Silva coming on to replace Fernandinho on Sunday while Ilkay Gundogan dropped deeper in the midfield and was helped by De Bruyne.

"We have to find a solution and see which players can play in that position," said Guardiola, after the Carabao Cup victory."We have a problem."

The most probable answer may come in the form of a midfield trident of Gundogan, De Bruyne and David Silva as City would be able to retain the ball; Fabian Delph is unable to come into the side as he is suspended after his red card against Wigan, and Yaya Toure has not been in the squad since January 2nd and has not started a game in the league this season.

In fact Toure has the fourth lowest minutes in the squad, only below Claudio Bravo, the back-up goalkeeper, and two of the squad's youth players, Brahim Diaz and Phil Foden.

Other options in midfield could be playing Danilo at holding-midfield, or giving more minutes to Oleksandr Zinchenko or Foden.

"Right now, Fernandinho is one of the best three defensive midfielders in the world," said Guardiola."He has reached another level thanks to his positivity and mentality."He gives us a lot, with and without the ball, in terms of competitiveness.

"In addition, he can play in many positions."Let's not forget that last year he had to play at full-back on a few occasions and he never complained."

Fernandinho has scored three goals in the Premier League this season and has played the fourth most amount of minutes by a City player in the league after Ederson (2,386), De Bruyne (2,319) and Otamendi (2,312), with the Brazilian playing 2,255 minutes and only not starting once.

Guardiola is clearly a huge fan of the Brazilian and made the claim last December that if he was still playing, he would be unable to get into this City side because of Fernandinho.

"I know that fans like football players who score goals, but all coaches value this type of player," said Guardiola.

"Perhaps the media does not talk enough about how important they are."I wouldn't play in this City team - Fernandinho is much better [than Guardiola was]!"

The club rewarded Fernandinho with a new contract in January, extending his deal to June 2020 when he will be 35.

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