Kevin De Bruyne and Aymeric Laporte will miss Manchester City’s away game against RB Leipzig due to illness, Pep Guardiola has revealed.
De Bruyne and Laporte were unexpectedly absent from City’s squad in the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League.
But Guardiola was able to confirm the nature of his problems after landing in Germany.
The City manager was unsure if any of the players – both started on Saturday against Nottingham Forest – would return to play at Bournemouth this weekend as he has been ill in recent days.
These absences will force Guardiola to make team selection decisions, although he has already raised some curiosity by naming Bernardo Silva, a midfielder, at left-back.
The role has previously been filled by Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko, but Silva struggled with Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka and then appears to be at fault for Forest’s equalizer on Saturday.
Guardiola said he was “not stupid enough to consider Bernardo as a full-back”, explaining his train of thought.
“They say we conceded from the left flank because Bernardo plays there, but people don’t understand that it looks like he is a left-back who has to defend in this position,” he said.
“Bernardo helped us do what we did against Nottingham Forest. It was impossible to concede without Bernardo [only] one counterattack and one or two actions at the end and [have] degree of control over the game.
