Pep Guardiola confirms Man City starter against Newcastle in Carabao Cup and offers injury update

Manchester City will travel to Newcastle for the Carabao Cup, while Pep Guardiola is expected to rest a number of players at St James’ Park.

Kalvin Phillips will start for Manchester City against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup, while Mateo Kovacic has returned from injury and will feature.

City are having some injury problems and Guardiola said he will have to rest some of his regular players in the third round of the Carabao Cup to help them recover.

Ahead of the match, Guardiola confirmed Phillips will start at St James’ Park with Rodri suspended, while Ederson is expected to sit out as usual in domestic cups in place of Stefan Ortega.

Guardiola also confirmed Mateo Kovacic has recovered from injury, while Jack Grealish is also expected to feature after returning from the bench against Nottingham Forest this weekend.

“He [Kalvin] will start,” Guardiola said. “Jack is much better, Mateo as well, I don’t know how many minutes, maybe the second half, but they will play.

“We don’t think about much, it’s just what’s next which is Newcastle. Now is an exceptional situation, a lot of players are injured and a lot have played a lot of minutes and they have to rest.

“Tomorrow is important but so is Arsenal and Leipzig, much important. I have to take into consideration the effort in this period and the injuries or we’re going to be in trouble.”

Regarding Phillips, Guardiola said he has been pleased with the midfielder’s contributions so far for City, even if minutes have been harder to come by over the last 12 months.

“Not just this week for many, many times since he arrived, he’s been really important,” he said.

“His consistency, he does everything in the game what happened against Nottingham, it was more defensive, resilient, defend and he helped us breathe. The important [thing] is when you act in the smaller spaces we try to help him. The game tomorrow is important and every single game I’ll decide what’s best for the team.”