Man City stalwart responds to Guardiola fears that he could miss the Champions League final | OneFootball

With only a few days to go now before Man City’s date with destiny, none of their players will want to get injured and miss out on a place in the Champions League final against Inter.

If the Premier League champions and FA Cup winners are able to add the European trophy to their cabinet for the first time, it will also earn them an era-defining treble.

The Italian giants will surely have something to say about that and even if City are most people’s favourites, to coin a phrase, it’s just 11 against 11 and anything can happen.

Surely, the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez et al won’t take kindly to simply being dismissed before a ball has even been kicked, and that’s likely to be all the motivation the underdogs need.

In any event, there appeared to be concern on Pep Guardiola’s part that one of his starters could be at risk of missing the showpiece.

Kyle Walker

“He has had a little bit of a disturbance in his back,” the manager had said of Kyle Walker at a press conference on Tuesday, cited by The Independent.

“Yesterday he was not good, today he was a little bit better but we didn’t want to take any risks. We will see in the next days.”

However, the player himself has sought to allay any fears that he wouldn’t be playing a part.

“I’m fine, I’m just getting old,” Walker told Sky Sports News, cited by Manchester Evening News.

“I’m completely fine, it’s just an extra day of recovery. I’ve played a lot of minutes over the last number of weeks so the manager said, ‘Just stay inside and come Saturday you will be raring to go’.

“I’m fine, the minutes that I’ve played when everyone else was injured, I was there digging my heels in and getting through it. I won’t be missing the Champions League final for anything.”

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Given how important Walker has become to Guardiola’s new system, it would’ve required quite the rethink from the manager as to how to combat any raids down their right-hand side.

From the player’s tone, however, it would seem that there’s no longer anything to worry about and Pep won’t have to tinker with his side again in City’s biggest game of their season.