Phil Foden is a major worry for Manchester City this weekend and is expected to miss the trip to West Ham as a result illness, according to Pep Guardiola.
The 24-year-old missed last weekend’s win against Ipswich Town, but there was hope he’d be back for Saturday’s trip to east London.
Pep Guardiola, however, admitted at a news conference on Friday that the England international’still doesn’t feel good’ ahead of the match against the Hammers.
Foden has only made one appearance this season, coming off the bench against Chelsea in the season’s opening weekend.
Rodri and Mateo Kovacic were doubts for the weekend, but Guardiola said both are ‘much better’ which appears to put them in contention to feature.
Oscar Bobb is a long-term injury problem for the Premier League champions, with the Norwegian out with a broken leg.
It has been a quiet transfer window for Manchester City, with just Savinho signed from Troyes and Ilkay Gundogan making a surprise return from Barcelona on a free transfer.
Julian Alvarez has left for Atletico Madrid while Liam Delap has gone to Ipswich leaving Guardiola a bit short on strikers after first choice Erling Haaland and he admits that could prove to be an error.
‘Maybe it’s a mistake, I don’t know, but I like to work with not a long, long, long squad. I don’t like to leave a lot of players without playing for a long, long time,’ said the Spaniard.
‘When you have a long squad with no injuries, they can stand for a month without playing, and I don’t like it. When everyone is involved with a chance to play, the performance of the team is always better.
‘We’re happy with the squad. We didn’t expect Julian was leaving, well “expect” I don’t know because he had conversations for a long time with his agent, so it could happen. But always you think he’s going to stay, but at the end it happened.’