Manchester City will return to action against Tottenham this weekend with a mixed picture in the central defensive positions, Pep Guardiola has confirmed.
The Premier League champions will be hoping to return to winning ways this weekend having succumbed to successive defeats in all of their last four matches for the first time since 2006 under the coaching of Stuart Pearce.
It has also been the first time in Pep Guardiola’s managerial career that a club headed by the Catalan has lost four matches in a row across competitions, but the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich tactician has largely played down the losing streak.
Pointing out that Manchester City have only lost back-to-back matches in the Premier League, the common consensus within the club is that much of their struggles have been down to injury problems across the pitch.
And after the final international break of 2024, little has changed for the club despite a number of central defensive options returning to training this week in the build-up to their meeting against Tottenham on Saturday evening.
Speaking to the media during his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon, Pep Guardiola delivered fitness and injury updates on four of his central defensive options for the clash against Tottenham at the Etihad Stadium.
According to the Manchester City manager, who is fresh off the back of a new two-year contract extension, both John Stones and Manuel Akanji had “trained good yesterday” in reference to Thursday, whilst Nathan Ake “is coming back training”.
The 53-year-old did however reveal that Portugal international Ruben Dias, who was not selected for his country during the recent international break, remains ruled out for Manchester City, but “hopefully is coming back soon”.
Alongside the ongoing struggles faced by Ruben Dias to get back to full fitness, Manchester City will now also be without Mateo Kovacic for up to one month after the Croatian sustained a fresh blow during the international break.
The nature of the injury remains unknown at this stage, and comes at a time when the club face a crunch run of fixtures including against Liverpool at Anfield and Aston Villa at Villa Park among other challenges.