De Bruyne and Laporte were surprise absences from the City squad for the first leg of its Champions League last-16 tie.

But Guardiola was able to confirm the nature of their problems after landing in Germany.

The City manager was unsure if either player – both of whom started against Nottingham Forest on Sunday (AEDT) – would return for this weekend's game at Bournemouth, having come down with illness in recent days.

Those absences will leave Guardiola with decisions to make around his team selection, although he had already been provoking some curiosity by naming Bernardo Silva, a midfielder, at left-back.

Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko fulfilled that role previously, but Silva struggled against Arsenal's Bukayo Saka and then appeared to be at fault for Forest's equaliser on Saturday.

Guardiola said he was "not so stupid to think Bernardo is a full-back" as he explained his thought-process.

"People say we conceded the goal on the left side because Bernardo's playing there, but people don't realise – the view is like he's a left-back who has to defend in that position," he said.

"Bernardo helped us to do what we had done against Nottingham Forest. Without Bernardo, it was not possible to concede [only] one counter-attack and one or two actions at the end and [have] the amount of control of the game."