Pep Guardiola rues Man City player absences during pre-season tour ahead of first friendly
manchestereveningnews.co.ukPep Guardiola says he has only had one perfect pre-season at Manchester City, with this year's tour disrupted by four players who did not travel to the USA.
City took a 26-man squad to Houston, but have lost Aleks Zinchenko, who is set to join Arsenal. Phil Foden, John Stones and Ilkay Gundogan did not travel as they didn't meet US entry requirements, and have travelled to Croatia with the under-23s, while Aymeric Laporte was injured so hasn't joined the group in the States.
Guardiola admitted that the situation was out of his hands, but said it meant he was not able to give his full squad the best preparation he would have wanted ahead of the new campaign. ALSO READ:Rodri identifies Man City leadership vacuum as opportunity to become even better "Yes it’s disappointing, I would like them to be here," he said. "Since our second season when we ended up with 100 points that was the only season when we were all together.
Since then it’s always been four players arriving and then a week later another one. We started the season with incredible problems.
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