Pep Guardiola furiously hits back at England boss Lee Carsley over Jack Grealish claim
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has made it very clear that he is less than impressed with Lee Carsley's decision to include Jack Grealish in his final England squad
by Dan Marsh · The MirrorA furious Pep Guardiola insists Jack Grealish is NOT fit despite Lee Carsley's decision to call the Manchester City star up for England duty.
The former Aston Villa man, 29, has been absent for the past three weeks with an issue picked up in training and is also unlikely to feature in City's final match before the international break on Saturday evening when they travel to Brighton.
But Carsley - who will stand aside after the upcoming Nations League fixtures against Greece and Republic of Ireland for Thomas Tuchel - has included Grealish in his squad.
And it was clear during a spiky press conference on Friday that Guardiola was less than impressed with Carsley's call.
When he was asked if Carsley's decision indicated that Grealish was, in fact, fit, Guardiola responded bluntly: “No. It's a question for the England manager. I'm not involved. They can select who they want. But no, he's not fit.
“It's [Carsley's] decision. In 17 days he didn't train once. Today [Thursday] was his first training and he trained for 20 minutes. This is the reality.
“It's always has been like that. National teams always play in this period and I'm always pleased for players to go. When they are fit, and they haven't struggled for the last one, two, three, four weeks. They love to play with their national teams. When they are fit and don't struggle in the last month. I have the opinion they have to recover.”
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When he was then asked if Grealish joining up with the England national team could boost his fitness, Guardiola added: “Maybe. I don't know. The manager from England will know better than me.”
Guardiola's comments come just 24 hours after Carsley claimed that Grealish had return to training with the Premier League champions - something Guardiola disputes.
Carsley said: “Jack's been training at City for the last couple of days. So we're hoping that we'll assess him when he comes into camp. Jack is in the same position as maybe four or five other players that there's question marks over whether they're going to be involved or not. We try and give them as long as we can.
“We've got almost a standby list ready, that if we were to lose two or three players, that we're capable of replacing them. And I think as well, I don't think this is the time of year to be gambling, or taking chances with players. If there's a risk that they're not fit, we won't take that chance.
“We definitely wouldn't put a player at risk. We take the lead off the clubs. Really happy with the communication that we've had from them. We'll assess it again on Sunday.”
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