Kevin De Bruyne is a fitness doubt again for Manchester City

Kevin De Bruyne is a fitness doubt again for Manchester City, ahead of three upcoming Belgium matches

Pep Guardiola indicated that Kevin De Bruyne should not play for his country at the beginning of next month unless he is fully clear of the ankle injury that he returned to Manchester City with.

The midfielder picked up an ankle injury in Belgium’s last-16 win over Portugal at the European Championship and later declared it a “miracle” that he had featured days later in the quarter-final defeat to Italy given that there was a tear in his ankle ligaments.

That same issue left him unable to complete a full training session in his first two weeks back at the Etihad, and after training this week with the squad he was unable to participate in Friday’s session to leave him as a doubt for the Premier League match with Norwich.

City are treating De Bruyne with caution as they look to avoid further damage to the injury, yet could have decisions taken out of their hands given Belgium have three World Cup qualifiers across a week at the start of September. Guardiola cannot stop the player being called up, but said that anyone who was not fit or injured should not be leaving Manchester.”

He trained at the beginning of the week and today he could not train. He has to be fit, he has to be good. In certain age of the players they always have disturbing pain,” he said. “You play free, free, free – then it is difficult at some parts of your career, but it depends on how you allow to do it and then do it. We will see.

“Otherwise they will stay here if they are not fit, or they are injured. Kevin and Phil [Foden] came back injured from the national team and when they are fit they will come back. When they are not fit they will not come back.”