Pep Guardiola has said that Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is ready to start against Newcastle United this weekend.
After being out of action since August with a hamstring issue that required him to have surgery, the Belgian made his much-awaited return last weekend where he came on as a substitute in the second half of City’s 5-0 win over Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup.
With the Citizens now set to turn their attention back to the Premier League with an away trip to take on the Magpies on Saturday, the Blues boss has shared an update regarding De Bruyne’s current fitness situation.
Guardiola says De Bruyne is fit enough to start against Newcastle
Speaking in his latest press conference ahead of tomorrow’s match against Newcastle, Guardiola had this to say when asked if De Bruyne is fit enough to start at St. James’ Park.
He said: “Yes. I saw him yesterday and he feels good and dynamic. He played well, better than the sessions before Huddersfield. He’s getting better. He had a few days off then trained, then we have warm weather training in Abu Dhabi which [will] help him prepare.”
Looking back over the win against the Terriers, it took the 32-year-old just 17 minutes to deliver an assists, which Jeremy Doku scored to make it 5-0 to the home side.
With almost a week having gone by since making his return to action, it’ll be interesting to see if De Bruyne finds himself in the starting XI for tomorrow’s match at St. James’ Park.
However, despite Guardiola’s latest comments, we feel that it would still be wise to err on the side of caution in terms of the amount of minutes the midfielder gets in the early stages of his road back to full match sharpness.
