Sergio Agüero is a doubt for Manchester City’s trip to Burnley, with Pep Guardiola to assess the striker’s foot problem when his squad train on Friday afternoon.
Agüero suffered the injury towards the end of Wednesday night’s 1-1 draw at Borussia Mönchengladbach that sealed City’s passage to the Champions League knockout stage.
Guardiola’s squad train at 4.30pm on Friday and both Agüero and Pablo Zabaleta, who missed the trip to Germany due to match fitness concerns, will be evaluated.
After further assessment of Vincent Kompany’s knee ligament injury the captain will be unavailable for two weeks longer than first feared. “They have confirmed what the doctor said. He will be out for six weeks,” said Guardiola.
The City head coach did not rule out strengthening at centre-back in January though he is not currently minded to play Yaya Touré there. “What happened in Barcelona happened once in the final of the Champions League,” said the 45-year-old, who as Barça coach in 2009 played Touré in the centre of his defence in the 2-0 victory over Manchester United in Rome. “Yaya’s going to play more in offensive terms. Sagna can play there. Bacary played central defender before and played awesome, so we have other options.”
Guardiola claimed he is happy with his full-backs after being unable to strengthen in the position during the summer because of financial constraints.
“I had four with contracts. We had different areas to buy new players and we cannot spend what we want because we have a budget. I am satisfied – I’m so happy about all my players,” he said. “Sometimes they try to play inside and that’s new for them. Some of them have the qualities to do that, and some of them find it more difficult.”
Of Burnley he said: “Yesterday, I saw their games. I was very impressed. They beat Liverpool, lost in the 93rd minute against Arsenal and drew at Old Trafford. What they do, they do really well. They lost 4-0 to West Brom [on Monday]. When a team loses 4-0, their focus will be higher on the next game.
“They will be faster. It’s so important for us that we have one week after this to prepare for the next round of games. This game is so key for us, we have Chelsea, Arsenal and Watford coming up.”
