When Kevin De Bruyne will start for Man City as Pep Guardiola doubles down on Kyle Walker stance

Kyle Walker and Kevin De Bruyne are close to full fitness for Manchester City - but Pep Guardiola won't rush either his captain or vice-captain back.

Walker missed almost a month of action since the last international break and has been unavailable for seven of City's 15 games this season. De Bruyne hasn't featured since the Champions League draw with Inter Milan in September, missing nine fixtures before his return to the squad at Bournemouth this weekend.

Captain Walker started at the Vitality Stadium, admitting that he rushed himself back to help amid an ongoing injury crisis, and looked short of full fitness in an error-prone 90 minutes. De Bruyne barely warmed up all afternoon and remained on the bench despite City trailing since the ninth minute.

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Pep Guardiola also welcomed back Jeremy Doku from injury while Nathan Ake, Manu Akanji and Savinho recovered from knocks - but City also lost Ruben Dias and John Stones as the absences continue to mount.

Guardiola insisted that De Bruyne was fit enough to feature at Bournemouth, but he simply chose not to throw him in for a return in such an intense second half. Instead, it is more likely that De Bruyne could start an upcoming game, with City at Sporting and Brighton this week.

"He came in yesterday and was feeling better but it has been one month and a half. The game was so demanding," said the manager. "Maybe in the last 10-15 minutes we could have done it. With Kevin, I try to take care of him. When he came back from a five-month injury last season, so come back and get minutes at the beginning.

"He finished well, started well and injured again. Of course we need him and he will be back and try in the right moments to do it."

On Walker, Guardiola backed his captain to return to full fitness quickly, revealing that he had barely trained in almost three weeks before his start at Bournemouth. Despite his errors at the Vitality Stadium, Guardiola again praised his captain for making the effort to return.

"Since he arrived this season after the Euros, he trained maybe four or five sessions with us," Guardiola said. "He can play with no training due to his human condition and physicality. Of course he needs to get back to a routine of playing games and being focused on what we have to do.

"I appreciate a lot the effort he has done to come back. The last game he played was the national team with England. He arrived and didn’t train once until yesterday.

Six minutes [he trained], made the boxes and six minutes, and then played today 90 minutes against [Antoine] Semenyo and all the fast players. It is not easy. Of course we need him, he is our captain. His best, step by step hopefully he can reach it."