Pep Guardiola has provided an update on a Manchester City star who missed a chunk of the 2024-25 season due to injury.
Pep Guardiola has confirmed that Rodri and John Stones will not start Manchester City’s FIFA Club World Cup Group G match against Al Ain, despite both players showing consistent improvement in training.
Rodri featured for 30 minutes in City’s tournament-opening 2-0 victory over Wydad, marking another appearance after a serious knee injury that had sidelined him for nearly nine months.
Guardiola stressed the need to protect the Spain midfielder, aiming to gradually increase his playing time, before commenting on Stones.
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19:39 - 22.06.2025
‘Fresh start’ - Man City injury retunee discusses Club World Cup ambition
An eighth-month layoff has intensified a Manchester City midfielder's drive for success.
What Guardiola said
Guardiola highlighted Stones’s talent and expressed his desire for the defender to maintain fitness consistently.
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The manager acknowledged the defender’s frustration when unable to participate and emphasised the importance of his feeling good during training sessions before returning to the demanding rhythm of games.
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“Only what we want from John is to be fit and make his lovely job of playing football consistently in a different way to how it happened especially last season,” said Guardiola. “The rest, his talent and ability, he will do it. We will help him and I’m pretty sure he’ll do the rest.
“We’ve been together almost a decade, since I arrived he arrived, the many good and sad things we shared, he’s a sensitive person and an incredible human being.
“I see him suffer when he can’t be involved, it’s so sad but important now is at training sessions, he feels better and then the game is another issue.
“It’s another rhythm and demanding but as much as he arrived a few days in Manchester and now here he trained almost all the session s with us and feels good. “This is what we want of him.”
What’s next for Man City?
Man City face Al Ain on Sunday night (USA) before taking on Juventus in their final group game at the ongoing Club World Cup.
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