Pep Guardiola clarifies Aymeric Laporte injury absence and Manuel Akanji role at Man City

Pep Guardiola is hopeful that Aymeric Laporte can return after the international break as he explained the reasons for signing Manuel Akanji.

Manchester City were not planning to add another centre-half to their ranks this summer as they prioritised other areas of the team. However, having conducted the majority of their business and seen Nathan Ake suffer an injury at Newcastle that he is yet to return from, the Blues saw an opportunity to sign a player with plenty of experience that included impressing against them in the Champions League.

Guardiola is happy that Laporte is recovering well from his injury and that he is on schedule with his rehabilitation but will not underestimate the seriousness of the injury that he suffered. With that contributing to a lack of depth at centre-back, spending £15.1m on Akanji made sense.

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"We had four incredible central defenders but Ayme had a tough injury - he's getting better but is still a month or a month and a half way, Nathan had some concerns about muscular problems," said Guardiola.

"We had just two central defenders with this incredibly busy schedule and we had an opportunity to bring a player who had just a year left on his contract at Dortmund, with a lot of experience at Dortmund and with the national team.

"He's what we need — fast, really good in the build-up, we felt it when we played against Dortmund a few seasons ago. We are very pleased they are here and good competition for the central defenders.

Guardiola had serious issues at the end of last season with Kyle Walker, John Stones and Ruben Dias all missing crucial weeks of the run-in after being rushed back from injury. Laporte played