Pep Guardiola says Kevin De Bruyne is a doubt for Sunday’s Manchester derby after he sat out Manchester City’s 1-0 FA Cup fifth round victory at Sheffield Wednesday.
Sergio Aguero scored the game’s only goal at Hillsborough as City booked a quarter-final trip to Newcastle United, but De Bruyne was notable by his absence after he came off the bench in the Carabao Cup final win over Aston Villa at the weekend.
Guardiola says that the Belgian fell awkwardly towards the end of that game at Wembley, and indicated at his post-match press conference that the playmaker had suffered a back problem that made him a doubt for Sunday’s trip to Old Trafford.
“He fell down in a bad position and had a problem with his back,” he said.
“We don’t know how long (he’ll be out for), hopefully not that much.”
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City only managed one goal on Wednesday night despite dominating possession for large portions of the game.
“It was tough. We knew it would be tough, but we made the job. Sometimes we have to take the win like this and we’re happy to go through,” winger Riyad Mahrez told BBC Sport after the match.
“We knew they’d sit back and we had to pass the ball between the lines and move a lot. We know we have good players on the ball and we’d create chances.
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“There’s still a long way to go, but we are trying to win every game. That’s how we are as a team. We are going to try all the time to play good and win.
“All the team are very focused every game, the manager makes sure we are focused in every competition. We are very strong mentally and we’ll try and win as much as we can.”
“Sometimes the ball doesn’t want to go in but I’ll keep trying until the ball does want to go in!”
