Man City boss Guardiola reveals injury blow ahead of new Premier League campaign | OneFootball

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has revealed that midfielder Rodri is a doubt for the start of the Premier League campaign.

The Ballon d’Or winner suffered an injury during the Club World Cup, and ahead of City’s pre-season friendly against Palermo, Guardiola says he will be cautious with the 29-year-old, who missed the majority of last season with an ACL injury.

“Rodri’s getting better but he had a big injury in the last game against Al-Hilal and for the last five or six weeks,” he said.

“He’s training right now and in the last two or three days is better. Hopefully maybe the international break is when he will be really really fit.

“Hopefully, in the games [before then] he can play some minutes. But the important thing is to not have pain because we don’t want him to be come back and injured, come back and injured.

“We will try desperately to avoid that but he’s training the last two or three days with us and that’s good.”

Guardiola does, however, hope to have Phil Foden available for the start of the new Premier League campaign in a week’s time.

“Phil was doing really good but he had a problem with a knock on his ankle that’s why as a precaution we did it,” Guardiola said.

“Phil, hopefully (can play), it depends on the problem but it’s a long week so hopefully.”

Discussing who could instead play in Rodri’s role, Guardiola continued: “We have three [midfielders] I would say with Kova injured until September or October – hopefully earlier.

“Rodri was out for six months and Nico. The other ones can play there but they are attacking midfielders, more that can play in the box.

“Gundo can play there, Tijji can play there but I think that when everybody is fit, they have the opportunity to play more up front because we have Phil and Cherki, we have a lot.

“That is good this season, I saw the schedule in my office and I said after September its every three days, every three days so at the end we will need players.”