Manchester City will head into their Premier League opener at Molineux this weekend without Croatian duo Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol, manager Pep Guardiola has confirmed.
Gvardiol joins his international teammate Kovacic on the sidelines, with Guardiola revealing last week that the midfielder is unlikely to feature until September.
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The defensive setback is compounded by the absence of winger Savinho, who sustained an injury during last week’s pre-season trip to Palermo.
“Kovacic is not ready, Josko is not ready, the others are,” Guardiola told reporters on Friday. “They will travel tomorrow and selection we will see. Tomorrow we decide. Savinho is injured from Palermo. Few weeks he will be out.”
Despite the injury concerns, there is positive news for City fans as Phil Foden and Rodri are expected to make the trip after missing the Sicily fixture. However, Guardiola stressed that Rodri’s return will be carefully managed to avoid any setbacks.
“Rodri is so soon to come back but it is important his knee is perfect,” he said. “He played Juventus after six weeks in his leg and we try to avoid that now he needs to play minutes in training sessions. What we want for him is to come back and to take a step back that would not be good. In this dynamic you can’t get rhythm, it is so demanding.”
The City boss added that while the Spanish midfielder has been training well, his involvement against Wolves will be decided on matchday.
“He’s made good training sessions and tomorrow he’s travelling. We will decide how many minutes. Hopefully he can play minutes in next games then after the international break every three days he can help us.”
Manchester City’s clash with Wolves kicks off at 17:30 (UK) on Saturday as the champions begin their title defence.
