Pep Guardiola 'struggles to see' Man City solution with John Stones amid fresh injury update

John Stones' inability to stay fit has denied Pep Guardiola an ideal defensive midfield solution, caused Manchester City to spend £63m on new centre-backs and forced Pep Guardiola to play Abdukodir Khusanov ahead of schedule against Chelsea.

That is the damning verdict of Guardiola, who has challenged Stones to make himself available in the Champions League this week to help the squad after missing large portions of the last two seasons due to recurring injuries.

Stones has struggled to maintain his fitness this season and hasn't completed 90 minutes for City since the end of October. He has been injured or unfit for 15 of the last 19 games, with three separate comebacks halted after a single game. The 30-year-old has missed more games this season through injury (15) than he has played (14), following on from 14 games missed last season through injury.

On his latest return from injury, Stones came off the bench at Paris Saint-Germain and was introduced against Chelsea to end the nightmare debut of Khusanov before the hour mark.

Guardiola stated that Khusanov 'shouldn't have played' against Chelsea as a young, new signing, but Stones' injury record made it necessary, and outlined why he feels he cannot play Stones as an alternative defensive midfield option.

City have spent £63m on new centre-backs this month, and Guardiola also insisted that wouldn't have been necessary if players like Stones and Nathan Ake had better injury records.

"John always had these kind of situations - except the year of the Treble when he was incredibly reliable," Guardiola explained. "It’s the same with Nathan and that’s why we went to the market. I wouldn’t like to go to the market in this period but we have a lot of examples of [players] not