Ahead of our regular pre-Gameweek team news summaries on Thursday and Friday, we bring you a bonus midweek round-up of some headline injury updates.
Double Gameweek 20 fixtures and FA Cup replays mean that we’ve heard from a cluster of Premier League managers over the past few days, with the stand-out quotes brought to you here.
MAN CITY
Kevin De Bruyne is fit for Manchester City’s clash with Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday, the second fixture of the reigning champions’ Double Gameweek 20.
The Belgian wasn’t sighted in training on Tuesday but now Pep Guardiola has now revealed that his midfielder’s absence wasn’t injury-related.
“A personal issue, he could not train. Today he is back.” – Pep Guardiola
City now have a fully fit squad, with John Stones (unspecified) and Ruben Dias (hamstring) declared “in contention” by their manager after returns to training.
MAN UTD
We won’t have long to wait to find out whether Anthony Martial will play any part in Manchester United’s Double Gameweek 20 clash against Crystal Palace but boss Erik ten Hag seemed cautiously optimistic on the Frenchman – who was hooked at half-time in the Manchester derby – when speaking ahead of the game.
”I hoped to avoid [him] getting injured. He was complaining, so that’s why he also didn’t train in the week and why he was a question mark. We decided, and he decided as well. He begged to start because I knew the start would be so important in this game. Especially because he is really good with his pressing and he is a really big element in our pressing, and he did that really well before half-time. But also you saw he was not capable to go 100 per cent and that’s what you need. Also, to avoid [him] getting injured, we took him off. But it also had an impact on our game, a negative impact after half-time.” – Erik ten Hag
LIVERPOOL
Darwin Nunez could be back in action in Gameweek 21, after missing last Saturday’s league defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion and the midweek cup replay against Wolverhampton Wanderers with a minor injury.
“I hope that Darwin (Nunez) is coming back and training tomorrow or Thursday. He might then be in contention.
“Kostas (Tsimikas) got a knock in the back, so let’s see how they recover. We have now this game and four days to train (for the Chelsea game) and after that five or six days of training until the next game. It’s always like this, it’s always about who shows up in training.
“The door is open for everybody. We have to fight and whoever is ready to fight has a good chance to play.” – Jurgen Klopp, on Tuesday evening
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
Rodrigo Bentancur (groin) could be back for the trip to the Etihad on Thursday, leaving only Lucas Moura (tendon) on the sidelines after Richarlison (hamstring) returned to the matchday squad on Sunday.
“Like I said after the game against Arsenal, we have Rodrigo Bentancur training with us – he is available and he could be available for the game against City.” – Antonio Conte
ROUND-UP
We previously reported on an injury to Dean Henderson (thigh) in our Gameweek 21 Scout Notes and now reports suggest he could be out for 4-6 weeks – something that might prompt Nottingham Forest to dip into the transfer market rather than rely on £3.9m FPL goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey.
Bruno Guimaraes‘ ankle injury isn’t as serious as first feared, with the timeline on the Newcastle United midfielder thought to be “weeks” and not months – so the Brazilian may only miss Gameweek 21 in FPL terms.
We might see a player who briefly flickered onto the FPL radar several months ago, Luis Sinisterra, back in action in the FA Cup this evening. The Colombian has returned to training after a foot injury.
