Manchester City were without defender Aymeric Laporte during their 2-1 loss to Leeds United in the Premier League this past weekend and just before the match, the manager confirmed that the centre-back had picked up a hip problem.
“Laporte had problems yesterday [Friday] in the hips and doctors said he could not play,” Guardiola said before the game.
Along with Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Aguero was also an absentee for the Leeds game but Guardiola has at least one bit of positive news coming out of the training grounds this week.
While Sergio Aguero has been missing from training but according to a report in the MEN, Aymeric Laporte has returned to first-team training for Manchester City.
The report claimed: “Manchester City should be able to call upon Aymeric Laporte for the Champions League trip to Borussia Dortmund after he returned to training on Monday.
“City have published pictures of Laporte taking part in training on Monday, seemingly confirming he has overcome the issue that forced him out of the Leeds game
“However, there was no sign of Sergio Aguero in those images, after he too missed the Leeds game with ‘niggles’ picked up last week.”
Laporte’s return is a huge boost for the Manchester City manager but Guardiola is not likely to use him in the starting line-up since Ruben Dias and John Stones have been his first-choice centre-forward pairing for the best part of the season.
Stones & Dias have been stellar in defence over the past few months but having someone like Aymeric Laporte on the bench will be an added bonus for Manchester City in the second leg.
As far as Aguero is concerned, the Argentine will not be missed at all since he has hardly played for the first-team this season.
