MAN CITY POTENTIAL STARTING LINE-UP
Guardiola's three main selection decisions will concern at left-back, centre-back and central midfield. Should David Silva not be fit enough, Ilkay Gundogan is most likely to replace him.
At centre-back it could be a toss-up between Stones and recent arrival Aymeric Laporte, with Nicolas Otamendi likely to take the other spot.
And at left-back Guardiola will have to decide whether to go for Oleksandr Zinchenko or Danilo. Zinchenko has been selected to play the games in which City are expected to do most of the attacking, while Danilo has come in for games where more defending is required, so it will be interesting to see who is selected to deal with Leicester, who are especially dangerous on the counter-attack.
Guardiola does not have too many other options at present, so further rotations ahead of games against Basel, Arsenal (twice), and Chelsea are hard to imagine.
LEICESTER CITY TEAM NEWS
Riyad Mahrez could make his return for Leicester after going on strike over the Foxes' refusal to sell him to Manchester City in January.
The winger has not trained for more than 10 days but while Claude Puel confirmed that he will not feature at the Etihad Stadium, it has been widely reported that he reported for duty on Friday and wants to play.
Leicester will be waiting to see if Ben Chilwell can return after missing last weekend's game with Swansea City, while Wes Morgan is building towards full fitness.
MAN CITY INJURIES
Gabriel Jesus and Benjamin Mendy will be out for several more weeks yet, while Fabian Delph is thought to be nearing a return, though his exact status is unknown.
Leroy Sane was pictured with the main group as they trained on Thursday, and there has been some suggestion this week that the German could be back sooner than the initial six-to-seven-week timeframe.
John Stones missed the game at Burnley as he was not fully fit, but he is in contention to face Leicester.
David Silva also missed the Burnley clash and Guardiola suggested on Friday that he will be fit enough to return this weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment