Pep Guardiola said he has never been as angry as when John Stones injured himself in an England friendly last season – after learning of an injury Kyle Walker has recently picked up with the national team.
Stones had started the last four league games leading up to March 2024 but picked up a groin injury in a friendly with Belgium. That forced him out of league games with Arsenal and Aston Villa and while he did return to play in the Champions League first leg against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, a setback in that game meant he could only manage 11 minutes of the second leg.
City’s centre-back recently brought up Guardiola’s reaction to it and the manager remains furious about the incident itself and the lack of communication around it. As well as swiping at former England boss Gareth Southgate, Guardiola said there could be no excuses for a player getting injured in a friendly for their national team when the club pay their wages.
“I was never so angry as that moment. Never ever before. I was so disappointed,” he said. “It was a friendly game and we are playing the quarter-finals against Real Madrid, and to win the Premier League. For a friendly game, two players coming back injured…I didn’t like it, at all.
“Before when I was a player the national team manager calls the clubs, now nobody talks. How they feel, how they are. Maybe the physios talk but the managers never.
“In the first or second season with Gareth yes, but now no. Sometimes Ronald Koeman because he is a friend of mine. I know the players don’t want to get injured, I always encourage them to go to the national team, it’s a pleasure, but if it’s a friendly game you cannot come back injured,
“I’m sorry. If you are focused, if it is a friendly game you cannot come back injured when you are playing the quarter finals of the Champions League, because they put in a lot of work behind [the scenes]. They are the first to make a lot of work to arrive in the last stages of the season with a chance to win the titles.
“We are well-paid here, the club pay us, not the national teams. Sometimes you have to respect the clubs. In friendly games you cannot be injured. You can play, absolutely, but you cannot come back injured.”
Walker played 90 minutes against Finland in the international break but returned to Manchester with a knee problem and is not expected to be available against Sparta Prague having already missed the trip to Wolves.
