Both Kevin De Bruyne and Aymeric Laporte were unavailable for the Champions League trip to RB Leipzig through illness along with John Stones who is recovering from a hamstring injury.
Guardiola will assess the fitness of the squad in his final training session in the afternoon before travelling down to the South Coast but is hopeful that De Bruyne will be in consideration for the trip.
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“We have training this afternoon, I think Kevin is back in training, Aymer I don’t think so,” the boss said in his pre-match press conference.
“John maybe will do partial training. This is the info I had from the doctors this morning, I will know within the next hours.
We will see. Maybe Kevin, but the other two, I don’t think so.”
Our trip to the Vitality Stadium will be the fourth of five consecutive away matches with the FA Cup clash with Bristol City to follow.
The run began with a 3-1 victory at Premier League leaders Arsenal followed by 1-1 draws at Nottingham Forest and at Leipzig in the last-16 first leg.
After not making any substitutions in the midweek game in Germany, Guardiola said the reason was not because he had any concerns about the depth of the squad.
“I don’t know if making substitutions or not is about tactics. I thought it was about 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 or the telephone number of my wife!” he added.
“I don’t know, it’s not a concern. We have a lot of players. Kevin, Aymer and John were not there, sometimes this happens.
“After every game after 10/15 minutes I thought it was good. I was going to make a change in the second half to get Julian [Alvarez] in a position close to Erling [Haaland] to be more aggressive in the high pressing but after we concede a goal.
“When the situation is going more or less well I don’t like to move many things, normally. When the situation is there and I see the team is stable, I don’t like to move much.”
