Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola spoke about the options available to him for the Champions League game with Galatasaray
Nico Gonzalez of Manchester City receives medical treatment during the Premier League match between Sunderland and Manchester City at Stadium of Light
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Pep Guardiola suggested that Nico Gonzalez will not recover in time to face Galatasaray on Wednesday in what would be a big blow to their hopes of a top-eight finish in the Champions League. City sit in 11th in the table with one game to go and need to win and hope other results go their way to avoid a play-off for the last-16 next month.
Gonzalez has not played since the Premier League game with Brighton earlier this month. He was an unused substitute in the FA Cup win over Exeter but has not made a matchday squad since, and Guardiola said on Friday that the hope was that he could return against Galatasaray but they would have to be careful in rushing him back that he did not aggravate any injury issues again.
A day later, after the 2-0 win over Wolves, the City boss was less optimistic about the hopes of their £59m midfielder playing. Rodri is suspended after his red card in the Bodo/Glimt defeat so Gonzalez's absence would mean that all three of Guardiola's options to play No.6 are unavailable for a crunch game.
“We need our fans,” the manager said after the Wolves game. “Marc cannot play, Antoine cannot play, Rodri cannot play, apart from all the players on the sidelines. Nico will not be ready. Savinho will not be ready, Stones will not be ready. A long list but hopefully our stands can encourage us to try it.
“We will continue in this competition, last season at this stage we played against Brugge and if we lost we went home. That will not happen this time."
The fact that there are still three days until the Galatasaray game could give Gonzalez time to recover. It was only a week ago that Guardiola declared that Omar Marmoush would not be available for their Champions League game in Norway, and not only did the striker travel but he came off the bench for the final 20 minutes.