City boss Pep Guardiola told reporters that he will make a final decision on the fitness of Kyle Walker on Wednesday morning ahead of his team’s Champions League semi-final second leg away to Real Madrid tomorrow night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Pep did confirm that John Stones would not be fit to face the newly-crowned Spanish champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Addressing the media at Tuesday\u2019s pre-match press conference, the City boss revealed Walker would continue to be carefully monitored between now and Wednesday before he makes a final decision on his availability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Kyle trained today and he will travel,” Guardiola confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Tomorrow we will decide – he is three weeks without training but we are happy he is back. We will decide tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yeah definitely (we have better options at right-back with Joao Cancelo also available after suspension).” And asked if Stones was fit to play, the boss responded: “No. He is not fit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking ahead to what promises to be another compelling evening following last week\u2019s seven goal thriller, the boss said he was anticipating a similarly engrossing match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are two good teams. We saw it a week ago when we played. They are champions of Spain. We are trying to be champions,” the City boss added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Both teams are good. I said a week ago we want to win and try and be in another final, for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“(But there is) no guarantee the same guys will play the same way. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We will try and win the game with the best XI possible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Real Madrid’s boss Carlo Ancelotti gave an online press conference following the final training session in the build-up to the encounter between Real Madrid and Manchester City and he previewed the game in the following terms: “The team is in good shape, motivated and focused. We face a big challenge and it’s a great opportunity to reach another Champions League final. There’s a good vibe, we’re aware of how tough it\u2019ll be tomorrow night, but are feeling very confident because the tie is wide open. We’re currently at a slight disadvantage and want to put that right.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, a positive result tonight for Liverpool in the now-running encounter with Villarreal would give the Reds’ Manager a great opportunity to add a second Champions League winners’ medal to his collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City boss Pep Guardiola told reporters that he will make a final decision on the fitness of Kyle Walker on Wednesday morning ahead of his team’s Champions League semi-final second leg away to Real Madrid tomorrow night. However, Pep did confirm that John Stones would not be fit to face the newly-crowned Spanish champions. Addressing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45717,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715\/revisions\/45717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}