Man City confirm major injury boost with encouraging Rodri update

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola reveale that midfielder Rodri could make a return from his ACL injury this season.

Rodri was expecte to miss the entire season หากคุณสนใจเล่นพนันออนไลน์ที่ดีที่สุด สามารถสมัครสมาชิก UFABET ได้ที่นี่ พร้อมรับโปรโมชั่นพิเศษสำหรับสมาชิกใหม่ after having to undergo knee surgery following his ACL injury against Arsenal in September.

The Ballon d’Or winner’s presence in City’s midfield has sorely misse, with Guardiola’s side seeing their title defence fall by the wayside after a dismal run late last year.

The signing of Nico Gonzalez from Porto has provide some cover in the middle of the park, but City will still be eagerly awaiting Rodri’s return.

And after the Spaniard returne to individual training late last week, Guardiola reveale that the 28-year-old could feature before the end of the campaign.

‘The fans must know they are not the only ones who are excite,’ said the City boss after his side’s 3-1 FA Cup win over Plymouth to book their place in the quarter-finals

‘It’s five months or six months. But [it’s] one step at a time. We don’t have to make stupid decisions [for him] to come weeks earlier.

‘He’s not close to coming back, but he’s touching the ball and is in the locker room. He feels confident and happy.

‘I could not expect before [him to return] before the end of the season, not even for the [Club] World Cup, but maybe it’s going to happen.’

Asked if Rodri could feature at Wembley if City were to reach the FA Cup final, Guardiola replie: ‘I don’t know. Quarter-finals we’ll see. We have to deserve to be in Wembley for the semi-finals first.’

With City already out of the Champions League, Guardiola’s stretche squad will have some much-neede breaks in midweek for the first time in a while.

And Guardiola is hopeful that they can put the time to good use as they look to ease new players into their squad and rebuild ahead of a fresh title push next season.

‘It’s quite new for us, he said. ‘I would say in nine years it’s never happene.

‘That means that we are not doing well, but yes, we are going to take this time off to refresh, because always I believe in this competition – people don’t believe it – but it’s about quality, not quantity.

‘And to refresh and we are going to make four good training sessions to prepare our important, really, really important game against (Nottingham) Forest.

‘We’re going to refresh things, practice things, and lift the rhythm, like normally when you cannot train because we play every three or four days, you cannot increase that. And refresh things that we cannot do that we have to do better.’

City can leapfrog Forest and move into third place in the league when the two sides meet next Saturday at the City Ground.