Pep Guardiola confirms Man City injury blow ahead of Tottenham clash

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has confirmed that his side have suffered an injury blow ahead of their clash against Tottenham.

City are on a four-game losing streak in all competitions, which started against Ange Postecoglou's side in the Carabao Cup at the end of October. Since then, they've also lost against Bournemouth and Brighton in the Premier League, as well as against Sporting CP in the Champions League - whose boss Ruben Amorim has since joined city-rivals Manchester United.

Guardiola's team will be looking to get back to winning ways at home against Spurs in the late kick-off on Saturday, but will be without a couple of players for the game against Ange Postecoglou's side.

The Spanish manager has confirmed that his team will be without former Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic for some time, while Ruben Dias is still out injured and he'll be hoping to have him back shortly.

"Kovacic is injured. It will be a while, a few weeks or one month," Guardiola told reporters.

"John [Stones] trained good yesterday, Manu [Akanji] trained good yesterday and Nathan [Ake] is coming back. Just Ruben [Dias] is out but hopefully he will be back soon. We didn't have central defenders and now we have three."

Spurs have some injury issues of their own with the news that Cristian Romero will miss the trip to the Etihad Stadium. The centre-back picked up a foot injury in the recent win over Aston Villa, but made his return to the team in the 2-1 defeat to Ipswich Town just prior to the international break.

Romero did go on to represent Argentina during the break but only played 45 minutes in their game against Paraguay as he was forced off through injury. Postecoglou has revealed that it could now be next week when the 26-year-old returns to the pitch for Tottenham.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference at Hotspur Way on Friday afternoon, he said: "Romero won't be right for tomorrow's game. We're hoping he'll be right for next week. Then sort of the main ones who were out before that are still out."

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