MAN­CHES­TER – Man­ches­ter City will be with­out star for­ward Khadi­ja Shaw and Ao­ba Fu­ji­no for the first leg of their Women’s Cham­pi­ons League quar­ter­fi­nal match against Chelsea at the Joie Sta­di­um in Eng­land on Wednes­day.

Shaw and Fu­ji­no both suf­fered mus­cle in­juries and were sub­sti­tut­ed dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s League Cup fi­nal against the same op­po­nents which City lost 2-1.

City’s in­ter­im head coach Nick Cush­ing said he sus­pect­ed the in­juries were “sig­nif­i­cant”.

“The prob­lem with these types of in­juries is that it is go­ing to take a few days to even be able to di­ag­nose how long [the play­ers will be out for]. I think that they are sig­nif­i­cant,” Cush­ing said.

“I have to find a so­lu­tion for this game and then we will roll on to the next one and see where we are. These mo­ments just give op­por­tu­ni­ties for oth­er play­ers.”

Shaw is City’s all-time lead­ing goal scor­er and the top goal scor­er in the Women’s Su­per League (WSL) with 12 goals from 14 match­es.

The in­juries to Shaw and Fu­ji­no are a fur­ther blow to a Man­ches­ter City squad al­ready strained by the long-term ab­sences of winger Lau­ren Hemp, cap­tain Alex Green­wood and de­fend­er Re­bec­ca Knaak.

Wednes­day night’s match at Joie Sta­di­um is the sec­ond of four meet­ings be­tween the two sides over two weeks.

They will play in the WSL on Sun­day af­ter­noon be­fore the re­turn leg of their Eu­ro­pean quar­ter-fi­nal next Thurs­day.

CMC