Castagne close to return – but Europa League tie is too soon

TIMOTHY Castagne is in the final stage of his rehabilitation as he closes in on a return from a hamstring injury, writes Jordan Blackwell.

The wing-back, one of City’s best performers in the first few weeks of the season, has now been on the sidelines for more than a month, missing nine games.

He initially suffered the hamstring problem in the build-up to the away Europa League fixture against AEK Athens at the end of

October – but as City prepare to host the Greek side tonight, he is still making his comeback.

He had returned to training ahead of the clash with Liverpool a few weeks ago, but a recurrence of the problem has set him back.

“He’s joining in with the group now,” Rodgers said of Castagne at his pre-match press conference yesterday. “He’s at that final stage of his rehabilitation.

“Again, we’re just trying to make sure he comes through all the necessary tests and measures. But he’s doing very well and hopefully it will be sooner rather than later he’s back. He won’t be involved tomorrow.”

Another player who won’t be available is Caglar Soyuncu. The centre-back tweaked his groin 15 minutes into his comeback last Thursday against Zorya Luhansk.

While a scan has shown it is not a serious recurrence of the injury that kept him out for two months, he will be given time to recover properly. “I don’t want to get locked into any sort of time and date,” Rodgers said on Soyuncu’s potential return.

“This is going to be about how he feels. There’s a lot of great medical work that has gone on with him. But it’s him, he has to get comfort in it.

“He is out working on the field, he is going through various movement patterns in order to find that comfort.

“Hopefully it’ll be sooner rather than later, but we don’t really want to be rushing it. The scan showed up clear but it was more telling us how he feels, that he wasn’t quite there himself with the comfort.

“We just need to make sure he is right, so that will be paced by him and the medical team.”

Ricardo Pereira, who picked up a groin problem on his comeback, expected to be out for another 10 days or so.

But Daniel Amartey is training again after his hamstring injury in October.