'He will get injured again' - Pep Guardiola issues warning over Kevin De Bruyne Man City return

Pep Guardiola warned that Kevin De Bruyne will suffer a recurrence of his hamstring injury if Manchester City don't manage is return correctly this month.

City have their captain back in training and tantalisingly close to a return to action after making the matchday squad last week against Sheffield United. He could play for the first time in almost five months in the FA Cup clash with Huddersfield, although Guardiola made it clear that De Bruyne won't be playing back-to-back games on his return.

Instead, with just three games in January - four if City reach the FA Cup fourth round - Guardiola said the priority for De Bruyne will be to accumulate training sessions while slowly building up his minutes in games as well.

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Discussing the plan for De Bruyne, Guardiola said: "I'd love to play the way he played the last eight years with me. I would love it. I think he's not going to change his qualities, his potential. But it's an injury, a big one, what I'm concerned the most is to try and avoid a re-incidence of the injury, this is what you have to be careful of.

"If the intention in the first minute is 'I want to play today', but you have to be careful. We have to speak with him, physios, doctors - the guys who know the best processes for the minutes. What Kevin needs, or every player with long injuries, is to accumulate weeks of training and minutes. Not make a setback, a setback would be the worst. For Kevin, Jeremy [Doku], Erling [Haaland], that is the most important.

"If they can train four or five or six training sessions in a