Phil Foden is unlikely to feature for Manchester City this weekend (Picture: Getty Images)
Phil Foden remains a serious doubt for Manchester City this weekend and is likely to miss the trip to West Ham due to illness, confirms Pep Guardiola.
The 24-year-old missed the win over Ipswich Town last weekend but there was hope that he would return for Saturday’s trip to east London.
However, Guardiola confirmed at a press conference on Friday that the England international ‘still doesn’t feel good’ ahead of the clash with the Hammers.
Foden’s only appearance so far this campaign was off the bench against Chelsea on the opening weekend of the season.
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.
Pep Guardiola likes to manage a relatively small squad (Picture: Getty Images)
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.’
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