Manchester City striker Wilfried Bony is fighting to be fit for this weekend’s League Cup Final, having only started training this week following a calf injury.
The Ivorian hasn’t played since the start of January, which has allowed Nigerian youngster Kelechi Iheanacho an opportunity to impress as understudy to main striker Sergio Aguero.
City’s strongest available team will have played an important UEFA Champions League tie against Dynamo Kiev out in Ukraine before Sunday’s final against Liverpool comes around, so it is up in the air whether manager Manuel Pellegrini, who put out a weakened side in an FA Cup competition he has never won last weekend and is still fighting to regain the Premier League title, will regard a League Cup he has won in the past as an important target in his final season with the club.
If not, he may be inclined to rest some of his strongest line-up, which would almost certainly have put a 100 percent fit Bony in the frame. As it stands, even if he has recovered, his lack of match fitness might at best relegate him to the substitutes’ bench in favour of Iheanacho, who surely deserves some reward for his impressive cameos.
Bony, 27, is keen to show what he can do at City before the arrival next season of top coach Pep Guardiola, who is sure to be given the funds to tick off whoever is on his shopping list.
The former Swansea star was forced to scotch rumours that he could return to south Wales on loan in the January transfer window and was also reported to have snubbed advances from China Super League big-spenders Guoan Beijing and Guangzhou Evergrande.
