Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini has denied rumours of a January loan move to Stoke for ‘keeper Joe Hart as part of a deal to bring the Potters’ ‘keeper Asmir Begovic to the Etihad.
Hart, who is set to play in goal in tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Viktoria Plzen, has recently lost his place in the City team after a string of high profile mistakes and although Romanian Costel Pantilimon has been keeping goal in the league recently the Chilean revealed after Sunday’s 6-0 thrashing of Tottenham that the England number 1 would get a game tomorrow.
Pellegrini said: “There is a lot of news about six or seven goalkeepers that we want to buy but it is not true.”
“There is no chance that Joe Hart could go out of this squad in January.” he added.
Pellegrini refused to be drawn on his choice to keep goal in Sunday’s Barclays Premier League game against Swansea at the Etihad, reiterating that: “The important thing for Joe is that he will play on Wednesday and we hope he will have a very good performance.”
City have already qualified from Group D and could rest some senior players despite seeking to keep pace with group leaders Bayern Munich with a hope of overhauling them at the top of the group in the final group game at the Allianz Arena in December.
City will be without injured stars David Silva and Stevan Jovetic who both have thigh strains while Jack Rodwell also misses out with the latest of a series of hamstring injuries.
Pellegrini confirmed that all three would be out for a further week to ten days.
City captain Vincent Kompany returned to training this week after a thigh injury but will not be risked against Plzen although he could feature against Swansea on Sunday.
“Vincent started this week on some work with the whole squad. I think next week he could play.” said Pellegrini.