\n
MANCHESTER, 1 Nov: Kyle Walker and Kalvin Phillips should recover from their injuries in time to be available to England for the World Cup, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said on Tuesday.
\nEngland coach Gareth Southgate will announce his squad next week and is unlikely to see Walker or Phillips return to action before naming his 26-man group for the tournament that starts on Nov. 20.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s likely, the way they recover,\u201d Guardiola said, when asked about the two players\u2019 chances of being fit for the World Cup. \u201cI don\u2019t know the intention for Gareth, but it\u2019s likely.
\n\u201cHe spoke with the players regularly, with the doctors, and they know exactly better than me. But what I hear in the dressing room, it\u2019s likely they can be ready.\u201d
\nWalker underwent a groin operation last month, while Phillips had surgery on his shoulder in September. Both played a key role in England\u2019s run to the European Championship final last year.
\nGuardiola said Phillips was ahead of Walker in his recovery but was still doing only \u201cpartial\u201d and \u201cnon-contact\u201d training sessions.
\n\u201cI know how important the World Cup is,\u201d Guardiola said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not going to use a player I feel is not ready for the physicality, the rhythm.\u201d
\nWhat\u2019s certain is that neither Walker nor Phillips will play against Sevilla in the Champions League on Wednesday in a game that has little riding on it for either team. City is sure of topping the group and Sevilla will finish third.
\nErling Haaland will also miss the game at Etihad Stadium, Guardiola said, after being ruled out of the 1-0 win at Leicester in the Premier League on Saturday because of ligament damage in his foot.
\nGuardiola said City\u2019s star striker is improving but \u201cstill not 100%\u201d and is not training with the team.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want to take a risk, there\u2019s no sense,\u201d Guardiola said. \u201cHopefully we can have him against Fulham (on Saturday).\u201d (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANCHESTER, 1 Nov: Kyle Walker and Kalvin Phillips should recover from their injuries in time to be available to England for the World Cup, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said on Tuesday. England coach Gareth Southgate will announce his squad next week and is unlikely to see Walker or Phillips return to action before naming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}