City will cope without Toures - Platt

Manchester City assistant boss David Platt accepts the champions must find a way to deal with the imminent loss of talisman Yaya Toure.

The inspirational midfielder and his brother Kolo, the centre-back, will head to South Africa to play in the African Nations Cup with Ivory Coast next month. The Toures, and particularly Yaya, were badly missed when the tournament was last held last season with their absences coinciding with a spell of patchy form.

Platt said: "I'm not too sure how many games he is gone for but it's something we have known about and will have to deal with. We lost him last year and won the league. The kind of player he is, it would be more beneficial to have him and it's similar with Kolo."

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