Pep Guardiola relying on John Stones for Champions League “final” | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has told John Stones that, unless he “promises” he cannot play, he has to start Manchester City’s “final” against Club Brugge on Wednesday and spare them from the embarrassment of an early Champions League exit.

England international Stones has not begun a game since December’s defeat to Aston Villa but Guardiola is relying on him to rescue City's European campaign.

He held Stones back in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Chelsea, using the 30-year-old as a second-half substitute and admitting that he should not have played debutant Abdudokir Khusanov, who was at fault for Noni Madueke’s third-minute opener.

But Khusanov and fellow new signing Vitor Reis are ineligible on Wednesday while Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake remain injured, leaving Guardiola depending on Stones and telling him that, if he is not fit, he will have to “invent” a left-back so Josko Gvardiol can move into the middle of the defence.

Stones has had to come off at half-time in his last two starts and has not completed a game since October.

But Guardiola said: “Listen, he has to play – unless he says to me that he promises he cannot play. And after that, Josko will be central defender and I will invent and think of who plays full back.”

Stones has often been injury prone, leaving Guardiola wary about his fitness. He explained: “John always had these kind of situations, except the year of the treble when he was incredibly reliable.

“Hopefully now this time he has recovered better. We gave him more time. 45 minutes against Tottenham, 45 minutes against Aston Villa and he is out. He played really good in this 40 minutes [against Chelsea] and has to make the effort for Wednesday, to give time for Ruben and Nathan to come back.”

City are short of centre-back options and Stones is required despite not being fully fit (Getty Images)

Guardiola sympathised with the 20-year-old Uzbekistan international Khusanov after his nightmare start.

“The problems continue,” he added. “Khusanov shouldn’t have played, it should take time to do it. It’s not easy, Chelsea in the Premier League and he’s come from another country, not communicating much with his teammates and arrived with no training sessions on what we want to do or the process we have. Imagine all of us living what happened to Khusanov? It would be, 'Oh, God'. But the situation is that Ruben and Nathan are not there and we’re lucky that Manu [Akanji] stayed [fit]. John can help us for our final on Wednesday.”

Guardiola also confirmed that Jeremy Doku will miss the Brugge game as he waits to see if the Belgium winger will be fit for next week’s trip to Arsenal.