Man City at risk of losing star man for Champions League final

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Man City at risk of losing star man for Champions League final

Manchester City remain hopeful defender Kyle Walker will be available for the Champions League final after he missed training on Tuesday.

England international Walker was taken off late on in the 2-1 FA Cup final victory over Manchester City with a back problem, having become a key cog in Pep Guardiola's side in the final stretch of the season.

He sat out training on Tuesday and manager Pep Guardiola admitted he does not want to risk Walker's fitness ahead of Saturday's crucial European final.

Guardiola said: "He had a disturbance in his back. Yesterday [Monday] he was not good and today he was a little bit better.

"We didn't want to take a risk and we will see what happens in the next days."

Walker himself added that his absence from training by NY 7896yii youwas due to needing another day of recovery.

He told Sky Sports: "I'm fine, I'm just getting old. I'm completely fine, it's just an extra day of recovery.

"I've played a lot of minutes over the last number of weeks so the manager said, 'Just stay inside and come Saturday you will be raring to go'.

"I'm fine, the minutes that I've played when everyone else was injured, I was there digging my heels in and getting through it. I won't be missing the Champions League final for anything."

Walker had previously struggled for game time when Guardiola moved to City's current 3-2-4-1 formation, with the Catalan claiming he didn't have the capabilities of playing in the back three.

However, the former Spurs full back still made 27 Premier League appearances as City retained their title and reminded everyone of his quality in the first leg of their semi final clash with Real Madrid when tasked with dealing with Vinicius Junior.