Pep Guardiola has confirmed that Leroy Sane is near a return to training with his Manchester City team-mates. City have missed Sane as an option in attack this year, with the winger was out since rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in August. Nevertheless, the 23-year-old has now begun training alone with the ball, and City boss Guardiola expects him to return to complete training shortly.”He is shut. I talked with him two weeks ago,” explained Guardiola as he prepared his City side for Tuesday’s EFL semi-final first leg away to Manchester United.”He’s training alone with ball and feels that he handled it well.”He’s doing amazingly well, his knee looks really good so I don’t think it’s going to take too much time to come back to train with us. “In the upcoming few months, he can come back.”
Sane’s injury in August stopped talk of a transfer to Bayern Munich for the Germany international. The speculation resumed as the transfer window and Sane neared a return to training – however, that the timescale of his rehabilitation is very likely to mean that he will remain until the end of the season with City.
Another player that has been a big miss for City is centre-half Aymeric Laporte, that has been sidelined since undergoing knee surgery in September. Together with Fernandinho having stuffed in as a makeshift centre-half, while neither John Stones nor Nicolas Otamendi has really nailed down a location together with the Brazilian city’s defence has struggled in the France international’s absence. However, Laporte is back in training with City team and is expected to return to action within the upcoming few weeks. The imminent returns of Laporte and Sane could be timely for the silverware ambitions of City this season. While defending the Premier League title now seems to be too much of an uphill task for City, they face Manchester United in the Carabao Cup semi-final on Tuesday, host Fulham in the fourth round of the FA Cup on January 25, and resume their Champions League bid away to Real Madrid on February 26.
