Man City v Chelsea: Pre-match press conference & build-up

Our reporter Michael Plant previews Manchester City's fixture against Chelsea, plus the latest injury news from Pep Guardiola's side.

Transcript

00:00 I'm here at Manchester City's CFA Centre where this afternoon Pep Guardiola held

00:05 his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow's game between Manchester City

00:09 and Chelsea. The City boss, well the first thing he did was give us a bit of an

00:12 injury update and he confirmed that Jack Grealish won't be involved tomorrow. He

00:16 was taken off at half-time, actually in the first half of Tuesday's win over

00:21 Copenhagen. Guardiola actually said he isn't sure the exact extent of

00:26 the problem but did confirm that the player won't be involved tomorrow

00:28 against Chelsea. He also said that Bernardo Silva, there's going to be a

00:32 fitness check on him this afternoon in training so we're not sure if he is

00:36 going to be involved but Mateo Kovacic is back, he's missed the last two games.

00:40 Sergio Gomez is also an option, you don't suspect he'll start either way and

00:44 the only other injury update is that Josco Guardiola isn't

00:48 going to be involved for City tomorrow. He also spoke in really glowing terms

00:54 about Cole Palmer, of course a player who left City in the summer to join Chelsea

00:57 and has had a fantastic season so far. Guardiola said that he is delighted

01:01 to see his progress that he's made at Stamford Bridge and certainly

01:04 doesn't hold any ill feelings towards the player for moving to Chelsea in the

01:08 summer. He did say that Chelsea are an exceptional team, in his words they

01:12 are currently sitting 10th in the table but Guardiola full of praise for them in

01:16 today's press conference, spoke about what a difficult opponent they're going

01:18 to be to face. Of course he's got a very long established healthy rivalry I would

01:23 say with Mauricio Pochettino but as I say Chelsea in 10th place in the league

01:27 going into this game but the sides when they met at Stamford Bridge in November

01:30 drew 4-4, one of the most entertaining games of the season so far, fantastic

01:34 game between the two clubs. Guardiola will be hoping it's a little bit more

01:38 straightforward tomorrow when the sides meet than that game at Stamford

01:42 Bridge. City go into the game in second place, they could potentially go

01:47 first depending on results elsewhere. Liverpool are currently top of the

01:50 table playing Brentford tomorrow in the half 12 kickoff but for City going into

01:55 this game 11 wins in a row in all competitions, 6 in the Premier League

02:00 they're starting to look really good again. Got a lot of players back from injury

02:03 albeit they have suffered a couple of injuries recently as well but they've got

02:06 Haaland firing again, De Bruyne firing, Phil Foden in excellent form as well so

02:11 City looking really good going into this game whereas Chelsea have obviously been

02:14 really up and down of late. They have won the last two, 3-1 against them

02:17 Aston Villa and Crystal Palace in both of those games but so hit and miss and

02:20 it was only a couple of weeks ago that they lost to Middlesbrough, I think it was

02:24 two weeks ago they lost to Wolves and there was a lot of questions asked about

02:26 Chelsea then so it really is what sort of Chelsea side are going to show up

02:30 tomorrow against City. I think probably we'll see lots of goals but I do think

02:33 ultimately City will win this one as they continue to hunt down Liverpool at

02:37 the top of the Premier League table.