Pep Guardiola will be looking to get Manchester City back on track after the international break and he’ll be hoping all his players report back to the club unscathed.
A number of Manchester City players had already withdrawn from their national team squads due to poor fitness.
The likes of Manuel Akanji, Matheus Nunes, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden all pulled out in a bid to get back to optimum levels ahead of the return of club football.
But a few stars have been on duty as normal.
One such player is Kyle Walker, who was back in action tonight for England against the Republic of Ireland.
And his level of involvement will surely not go down well with Pep Guardiola.
- READ MORE: Every Manchester City player on international duty and their fixtures after latest withdrawals
Guardiola said Kyle Walker wasn’t ready for 90 minutes before international break
It has not been a good season for Walker and part of the reason for that is that he returned late in the summer.
Walker featured heavily for England at the Euros, and then didn’t have a pre-season ahead of the 2024/25 season.
Guardiola admitted that Walker has hardly trained this season, but said that his top physical condition means he can get away with it.
But after City’s latest defeat to Brighton, Guardiola stated that Walker was ‘not ready for 90 minutes at all because he trained a few sessions all season so far’ (via MEN).
But Lee Carsley decided to start Walker at right-back against Greece on Thursday, with the 34-year-old playing a full game.
Tonight, Carsley started Walker once again, this time as a centre-back next to Marc Guehi.
In the end, Walker played for an hour. But that is probably an hour longer than the Manchester City manager would have liked.
Guardiola was already clearly frustrated when Carsley called up Grealish, although the winger did end up withdrawing.
Far from ideal as Walker plays 150 international minutes
With Walker having not had a pre-season and having seen plenty of minutes for City recently, this was potentially a good opportunity for him to rest up.
That said, Walker has not been carrying any kind of injury and has seemingly just been lacking fitness.
So Carsley is within his rights to select who he wants.
And as much as many fans don’t like the Nations League, it is an official UEFA competition and Carsley is not about to hold non-injured players back.
But Guardiola will still likely not be best pleased. Hopefully, Walker is able to feature a little less for City once club football resumes, with Rico Lewis and Manuel Akanji both options to play on the right side.
