MANCHESTER, England: Manchester City midfielder Rodri has returned to training for the first time since suffering a serious knee injury in September, manager Pep Guardiola said on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Spain international\u2019s absence following surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament has been cited as a major reason City\u2019s quest for a fifth straight Premier League title crumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the 28-year-old Ballon d\u2019Or winner\u2019s recovery has probably come too late for this campaign, the news of his return to the grass is a welcome boost for City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guardiola also said their Norway striker Erling Haaland is back in training, having not played since March 30 because of an ankle injury, although he is unlikely to feature in Friday\u2019s home game against Wolverhampton Wanderers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rodri will now be guided by the club\u2019s medical staff before a return date is set, Guardiola said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe moment the physio and doctor say that Rodri can start to play minutes he will start to play minutes. But the doctors have to tell me,\u201d Guardiola said on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a difficult injury. It was seven months to eleven months more or less the doctors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe feels really good, every day he\u2019s making sessions and sessions but we have to make the step to avoid making a step backwards and being injured again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haaland, 24, injured his ankle in the 2-1 FA Cup quarter-final win over Bournemouth in March and has missed five league games and Sunday\u2019s FA Cup semi-final win over Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City are fourth in the Premier League with 61 points from 34 games in a battle with six clubs for Champions League qualification, with the top five all assured of entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wolves, however, are in sensational form and arrive at The Etihad Stadium on Friday on the back of six successive wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not surprised (by Wolves\u2019 form), Guardiola said. \u201cIn the last few years I think they have always had really good players and now they\u2019ve had an incredible run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite similar when Newcastle came a month ago and Aston Villa came. It\u2019s another final for us. We have four finals and now we go for the first one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANCHESTER, England: Manchester City midfielder Rodri has returned to training for the first time since suffering a serious knee injury in September, manager Pep Guardiola said on Thursday. The Spain international\u2019s absence following surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament has been cited as a major reason City\u2019s quest for a fifth straight Premier League title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5019,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions\/5019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}