Manchester City have welcomed four players that were carrying knocks back to training, ahead of the FA Cup final with Manchester United.
Pep Guardiola has been putting his stars through their paces, ahead of the first of two massive games.
City are looking to beat United on Saturday at Wembley, and then follow that up with a win over Inter in the Champions League final to complete the Treble.
The games have come thick and fast for City over the last few months.
And that has unsurprisingly led to a few injury niggles here and there.
For City’s final game with Brentford on Sunday, four key players did not travel with the matchday squad.
They were Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Manuel Akanji and Ruben Dias.
Pep said after the 1-0 defeat that Dias had not trained for 10 days before the game with the Bees. He said (via MEN): “We had four, five players with niggles, not injuries. They were not fit for a few days.”
City fans have been sweating on the quartet that did not travel at the weekend.
But the club have today released some new training photos. And all four players can be seen which is a big boost.
Arguably, Pep would want to start all four players at Wembley.
The only one he may have a slight headache over is Akanji, with Nathan Ake now back fit.
Ake returned from injury against Brentford, and has been absolutely superb this season.
Given Kyle Walker is very much in favour right now, it’s touch and go whether Akanji will start against United.
Great news as key quartet are seen in latest Man City training photos
Who knows if Pep was just playing mind games at the weekend, or if he was actually worried some of these players would not make the final against United.
But it sure is a relief to see them all in training days before the trip to Wembley.
Hopefully, their issues are all sorted now and they can head into the game with full focus.
All four of these players are going to be very important indeed on Saturday
