Man City v Tottenham: Pep Guardiola and Ange Postecoglou give injury updates on six players

Pep Guardiola and Ange Postecoglou held their respective pre-match press conferences on Friday, ahead of this weekend’s Premier League game between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

The pair both have injury concerns ahead of the clash and Guardiola revealed that John Stones and Mateo Kovacic have made positive steps in their recoveries from  recent injuries. “He [Stones] is much better, yeah. He’s really close to coming back,” the City boss explained on Friday. “He’ll be with us; he’ll be there [on Sunday].

“Mateo is already back, I think. He trained well” Guardiola added, with the midfielder missing the last two matches with a leg injury.

But the ex-Barcelona manager also confirmed that Matheus Nunes won’t be back for ‘days or weeks’ and the ex-Wolverhampton Wanderers man joins Kevin De Bruyne on the sidelines.

As for Postecoglou, the Australian said Richarlison could be back for the trip to the Etihad, although it’s expected to come too soon for Pape Matar Sarr.

“Richy's probably the closest out of the ones who have been missing, so looking to get him involved in training hopefully tomorrow [Saturday] and then we'll see how he is as he's obviously missed a fair bit," the Spurs boss told the club’s website.

"He's done his rehab really well and he feels good which is important. He's the next cab off the ranks in terms of the injured guys.

“Pape is probably a little bit behind him, so we'll see how he goes,” Postecoglou added. “Out of all the injured guys they're the two we hope will be back in the next couple of weeks. The rest of them we won't see until the new year.”

‘The rest’ refers to Micky van de Ven, Ivan Perisic, Ryan Sessegnon, James Maddison and Manor Solomon, all of whom won’t be involved on Sunday. Rodrigo Bentancur has also been ruled out until January.

“No exact timeframe. It will be well into early next year, a couple of months at least,” Postecoglou said in Friday’s press conference. “Talking to him he's such a positive guy. 

“If it was me I'd have a much grumpier outlook. But he knew when he was out there that he hadn't lost anything. He was still playing the way he was. So he can't wait to get back out there.”

Elsewhere, Cristian Romero is suspended following the red card he received against Chelsea, but Yves Bissouma returns from a one-game ban.