Man City dealt double injury blow ahead of FC Copenhagen as three academy players train with first team

Manchester City could be without defender Josko Gvardiol and midfielder Mateo Kovacic for their Champions League last-16 first leg against FC Copenhagen, with both missing from training on Monday.

Kovacic was absent from the win against Everton on Saturday with injury but Gvardiol was an unused substitute for the game, however the Croatian pair were both absent from the 15-minutes of open training held on Monday morning before the afternoon flight to Copenhagen.

Sergio Gomez also looked to be absent from the session and there were call-ups for academy stars Tom Galvez, Jacob Wright and Mahamadou Susoho to join the training squad.

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City extended their winning run in all competitions to 10 games on Saturday, with Erling Haaland scoring for the first time since November 28 as his late double downed Everton.

Attention now turns to defending the Champions League title they won for the first time in Istanbul in June and the Blues are overwhelming favourites to get the better of FC Copenhagen over two legs. But the Danish giants did hold City to a goalless draw at the Parken Stadium in the group stage last season and they qualified from their group ahead of Manchester United and Galatasaray.

"They had a group against Bayern Munich, against United, against Galatasaray, they go through one of the toughest groups," said Guardiola.

"We play two years against them and didn’t win there. I still didn’t see them, tomorrow [Sunday] I start to watch it carefully, I will listen to my staff what they saw. From my experience, first leg last 16 always tricky. Always have been difficult and it will