City’s squad has been decimated with various fitness issues for the past couple of months, but some of those problems look to be improving – though there was a further blow with news that Mateo Kovacic could be out for up to a month.
“Some of them [could be available], yes,” said Guardiola when asked for a squad update at his Friday press conference,
“John [Stones] trained good, Manu [Akanji] trained good. Nathan [Ake] is coming back to training, so we didn’t have any centre-backs and now we have three.
“Ruben [Dias] is out but hopefully back soon. Some players recover better.
“These 10 days some players recovered a little. I don’t know if they are ready to play 90 minutes or play from the beginning but to see the training session and see their faces was a really good boost for all of us.”
However, the news was not all positive with the boss revealing Kovacic has returned from international duty with Croatia.
“He (Kovacic] will be a while - three weeks or a month. More or less,” said Guardiola.