- Khusanov’s mistake lead to Chelsea taking the lead after just three minutes
- Manuel Akanji says he encouraged the 20-year-old defender to keep going
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Manuel Akanji admitted he was trying to ‘protect’ debutant Abdukodir Khusanov after the Man City defender endured a nightmare start to life in the Premier League.
Khusanov’s weak header back to Ederson led to Chelsea taking the lead in the third minute before he was booked in the fourth minute.
The 20-year-old looked visibly shook and though things improved, Pep Guardiola took him off nine minutes into the second half for John Stones as City went on to win 3-1.
Akanji, who was at centre-half alongside Khusanov, said: ‘I tried to protect him and not bring him into situations where it could be really tricky, especially against a team like Chelsea who have so many good individual players.
‘I just tried to lift him up and tell him not to think too much but to keep on going and maybe play the safer pass back to Eddy (Ederson) in his next action and win his next duel to get his confidence back. I think that’s the only thing you can really do.’
Khusanov was born in Uzbekistan and has spent the last three years playing club football in Belarus and France before City signed him from Lens for £33M earlier in the week. He is the first Uzbek player to sign for a Premier League club.
Guardiola added post-match that he couldn’t speak directly to Khusanov as he doesn’t know English yet but Akanji stressed he is confident that his new teammate will overcome the language barrier in time.
Manuel Akanji admitted he was trying to ‘protect’ Abdukodir Khusanov against Chelsea
Khusanov’s Manchester City debut began with a mistake which handed Chelsea the lead
The 20-year-old looked visibly shook and was eventually taken off early in the second-half
‘He (Khusanov) says he understands English better than French so I speak English with him,’ said Akanji. ‘I think he will improve his English – he needs to because we need to communicate, it’s especially important as centre-backs so we can help our teammates around us. I think he understands a lot. He can’t really talk good yet but it will come definitely.’
City’s next game is on Wednesday at home to Club Brugge in the Champions League where they must win to qualify for the Champions League play-offs.
Anything less than victory will see them eliminated in the league phase and Akanji insisted that every game is ‘big’ for Guardiola’s side if they want to win silverware this season. The last time they went trophyless in a campaign was during Guardiola’s first season in charge in 2016-17.
‘We’ve only got big games now for the rest of the season because we put ourselves in this position in the Champions League and in the league,’ said Akanji. ‘We know if we want to have a chance to lift a trophy this year, we need to win every game that we have and that’s the mindset.’
