Pep Guardiola has sparked a fresh club-versus-country row after Kyle Walker returned from recent international duty injured.
The right-back missed Manchester City’s victory at Wolves on Sunday and will be sidelined for Wednesday’s Champions League game against Sparta Prague after sustaining a knee problem in England’s defeat of Finland last week.
It has brought back bad memories for Guardiola of the frustration he felt – with the national team and even the players themselves – after both Walker and John Stones were injured playing for England in March.
Indeed, in the latter’s case, Guardiola said he had never been so angry as he was after Stones limped out of England’s friendly against Belgium with an adductor problem.
That came at a crucial stage of City’s season as they chased the treble and with a Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid looming.
The centre-back was an unused substitute for City’s next two games and did return to face Real, but he had a curtailed involvement in the remainder of the campaign.
City manager Guardiola said: “I was never so angry as that moment. Never ever before was I so disappointed.
“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 – (tuts) no, no, no. I didn’t like it, at all.
“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.
“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.”
It is unclear when Walker will be fit to return, but Wednesday’s visit of Sparta Prague comes too soon, as it does for playmaker Kevin De Bruyne.
“I can’t tell you, I don’t know,” said Guardiola when asked about De Bruyne, who has now missed six games with a pelvic problem. “It’s not a big issue, but he doesn’t feel completely fine and Kevin is not 22 years old anymore.
“He has to be fit completely for his football. He is training a little bit better, but he said to me he still doesn’t feel good, so I said take your time. Kyle as well is not ready.
“No injuries is the only reason how you can arrive until the end of the season, that’s why the medical department, with the intensity of training you have to do, have to be so careful.
“I just pray for them to be fit. If they are one-and-a-half months out, there is no solution to that.”
