Even though Kevin De Bruyne missed a training session earlier this week, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has stated that the star player will be eligible to play against Tottenham on Thursday.
On Tuesday, De Bruyne did not show up for training with City because he had been given permission to take some time off for personal reasons in advance of Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League.
A television team filmed part of the training session, and during that time they noticed that the Belgium midfielder was missing.
However, City Pep Guardiola told reporters on Wednesday that Kevin de Bruyne will be available for selection for the defending champions in their must-win matchup against Antonio Conte’s squad.
According to Guardiola, the player “had a personal issue and was unable to train but as of today he is back.”
Ruben Dias and John Stones, both of City’s central defenders, have been sidelined with injuries for some time, but Guardiola said they are hopeful of making their returns against Tottenham.
Injury to his thigh has kept Portugal’s Dias out of action since the World Cup, and an unidentified fitness issue has caused Stones, who represents England internationally, to sit out the past three matches for his country.
“They have returned. Both of them had done a fantastic job throughout the last two training sessions. According to Guardiola, “they are in contention.”
This afternoon, we are going to train in order to determine who is going to play and what kind of game we will have to play.
After suffering a disputed loss by the score of 2-1 against their fiercest rivals Manchester United on Saturday, City is looking to get back on track.
Bruno Fernandes’ game-tying goal allowed to stand despite the fact that Marcus Rashford stood offside and seemed to interfere with play in the lead-up to the goal. This prompted much concern. Arguments erupted.
Rashford added insult to injury for City when he scored the game-winning goal a few minutes later, putting City eight points behind the team in the first place, Arsenal.
Guardiola has no intention of focusing on the disheartening result because he does not want his players to feel sorry for themselves, and he does not want to allow them.
“It’s finished. It’s in the past.” Since we are not going to make any changes at this time, we will concentrate on Tottenham. Thats the message I delivered to the players two minutes later when we were in the locker room, he added.
“We need to step up our game and take charge of the aspects of the situation that we can.” This is a requirement for very large teams. “The past is the past, and that is all there is to it.”
Guardiola admitted that City had not been playing at their best level as of late, noting that the loss to United followed a lackluster defeat to Southampton in the quarterfinals of the League Cup.
“The fluidity of our operations has not been as fantastic as it normally is. It is sometimes necessary to make a decent build-up, put the ball inside to open, and split the defensive lines, and we struggled in the past two games,” he added. “Sometimes, in order to make changes, you need to make a nice build-up.”
