Pep Guardiola is among the Manchester City players and staff who have tested positive for Covid-19 following a major outbreak in their first-team squad.
Assistant Rodolfo Borrell, who will take charge of the FA Cup fixture against Swindon Town on Friday night, confirmed the City manager is “fine” and does not have a lot of symptoms.
Manchester City Suffer Covid-19 Outbreak With Pep Guardiola Testing Positive
Major Outbreak
The club has announced that a total of 21 members of players and staff have recorded positive tests on Tuesday. Guardiola’s assistant Juanma Lillo is a part of this group.
Manchester City’s statement read: “This brings the number of those isolating for Covid related reasons amongst the group to 21. Of that number, 14 are backroom staff and seven are first-team players.”
Considering Guardiola confirmed Phil Foden and Oleksandr Zinchenko missed their 2-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday due to Covid, it is possible they are included within the list of first-team players.
During the pre-match press conference, Borrell explained that he was not at liberty to share who had recorded a positive test.
“This is not for me to say,” he said. “We have seven players… right now I don’t want to mention them, I may even forget one, if that makes sense. It’s not for me to say.”
Youth Player Opportunities
If City’s squad was not depleted due to Covid-19, it would have been likely a rotation of players was already on the cards. Nevertheless, the sudden outbreak means more players will be handed a rare opportunity to shine.
Cole Palmer, a talented attacking midfielder and striker, should be expected to have an influential role in the team if he was not one of the players who tested positive. Guardiola has already brought the 19-year-old into the first team and in doing so he has made ten appearances and scored two goals this season.
On the subject of which players will be involved, Borrell gave nothing away but confirmed the second team has also been affected by Covid-19.
“It’s possibly one of the easiest lineups to decide, we play with the ones available,” he said.
“We aim to play as much as we can, respect the competition, keep playing and at this moment we can fill the team. I don’t know if it can happen in the following days. We have some first team players and some who will come from the academy.”
“To fill in the whole squad and travel with five or six squad, we have to bring some players in the second team, but the outbreak involves players from the second team so they have had plenty of covid cases.”
He added: “Right now we are ready to play the game, we have been preparing for it and mentally we are ready.”
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