Guardiola insists Man City flight delay is ‘no problem’; reveals key duo ‘feel better’ after their injuries | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola gives instructions to Kalvin Phillips.

Pep Guardiola has rubbished suggestions that late changes to Manchester City’s travel plans could impact their performance at RB Leipzig in the Champions League.

The Treble winners were scheduled to fly to Germany for the Group G encounter on Tuesday afternoon but were delayed due to strong winds in the Leipzig area and their flight instead took off in the evening.

Man City manager Guardiola was due to hold a pre-match press conference at the RB Arena on Tuesday but he instead spoke to the media remotely before travelling with the rest of the club’s squad.

“It’s no problem,” Guardiola said. “That it’s safe to fly and land, that’s the important thing.

“It’s not at 7pm, (they said) you have to do it at 9pm and it’s not a problem. The authorities said it was so risky to fly before so that’s why we made the training session longer and the lunch longer.

“We have time to rest and now we are going to fly to Germany.”

John Stones and Bernardo Silva will travel with the squad to Germany having recently returned to training following injury.

Stones has not played since the Community Shield with a thigh problem while Silva has missed the last three games with a knock.

Guardiola said: “They feel better, Bernardo better than John. Both travel and we’ll decide tomorrow.

“We’re really happy they’re back. It’s taken a bit longer but they are back. That is the good news for us.”

Guardiola also paid tribute to former City player and chairman Francis Lee, who died this week.

He said: “We are here (because of) people like Franny Lee, Mike Summerbee, Colin Bell, part of the generation that created a part of this organisation, this club.

“On behalf of the team, to his wife and all the family, a huge hug.”

On last season’s 7-0 loss to Man City, Leipzig boss Marco Rose said: “The 7-0 loss away from home is old news for us,” he told reporters at a press conference. “We know that we played well (in the) home (leg) last season, even though we were made to battle and come back from a goal down.

“We know what to expect on Wednesday. You need a bit of luck, as well as a good performance, to beat teams like City but we have faith that we can get a win at home with the fans behind us.

“We want to bring the energy we need to have into the game and use the opportunity to test ourselves against this opposition. It’s a new season and we’ve made a good start to it.”