Guardiola gives fitness update on Savinho and Doku | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola says that Savinho is available for City’s Premier League clash with Newcastle United but Jeremy Doku is not yet ready to return.

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City face the Magpies on Saturday at 20:00 (UK) at the Etihad Stadium with the opportunity to cut the five-point gap to leaders Arsenal.

Savinho has been absent for close to two months through injury with his last outing in the draw at Sunderland on New Year’s Day.

Meanwhile, Doku has not featured since he was substituted during our Champions League win over Galatasaray at the end of January.

“Doku is not ready and Savinho is ready,” Guardiola said in his press conference on Friday.

City had a rare midweek off following our 2-0 victory over Salford City in the FA Cup last Saturday.

Erling Haaland was not in the squad for the fourth round win, which set up our fifth clash of the season with Newcastle.

We won both legs of our Carabao Cup semi-final encounter against the Magpies, while Newcastle won 2-1 when we met at St James’ Park in November.

Guardiola hopes the rest has helped his players ahead of this weekend’s game and says the group have trained well since their return.

“The important thing is the players are revitalised after three days,” the boss added.

“We’ve had a lot of months with few days off - games every weekend and midweek.

“I don’t have to run one metre so for me it’s not a problem. After one or two days I sleep well so it’s enough.

“For the players it’s really good, they have a long week to rest, to forget [about football] and to train good. And they trained good in the last few days.”