Manchester City will enter the 2025\/26 Premier League season with significant midfield uncertainty after Pep Guardiola confirmed key absences and doubts.<\/p>\n
Mateo Kova\u010di\u0107 and Rodri are set to miss the opening period, while Phil Foden is doubtful for the league opener against Wolves on Saturday, Aug. 16. Kova\u010di\u0107\u2019s Achilles injury, which prevented him from featuring in the United States this summer, is taking longer to heal than initially expected. Guardiola revealed the Croatian might not be back until October, leaving the squad short of two midfield options before the campaign begins.<\/p>\n
Guardiola also addressed Foden\u2019s availability ahead of the opener. \u201c[Foden] has a problem in his ankle and that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t take a risk with him this week,\u201d Guardiola said. \u201cI don\u2019t know [if he will be fit to play against Wolves]. It was just a knock but it was painful. He will be ready when he is ready.\u201d The England international remained in Manchester while the squad travelled to Sicily for their sole pre-season friendly.<\/p>\n
City recorded a 3-0 win against Palermo without Foden, Rodri and Kova\u010di\u0107. Nico Gonz\u00e1lez filled the No. 6 role in their absence and will continue there until the 2024 Ballon d\u2019Or winner returns to full fitness.<\/p>\n
Guardiola offered a cautiously optimistic update on Rodri\u2019s recovery. \u201cRodri is getting better but he had a big injury in the last game against Al Hilal,\u201d the Man City boss said. \u201cHe has trained better in the last few days, hopefully after the [September] international break is when he will be really fit.\u201d If that timeline holds, Rodri would miss only the matches against Wolves, Tottenham and Brighton.<\/p>\n
Kova\u010di\u0107 faces a longer rehabilitation, with an additional two months on the sidelines likely. While Foden is doubtful for the weekend, he is expected to return to the pitch before either of his two injured teammates as City seek to begin the season competitively despite the early setbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rodri sidelined for the start of 2025\/26; Foden doubtful for Wolves on Aug. 16, Kova\u010di\u0107 longer-term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[242],"class_list":["post-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1616,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/1616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}