Pep Guardiola accepts Manchester City need to strengthen defensively to ease the problems they continue to have.

City's coach recently went out of his way to praise Nathan Ake publicly for playing when he hasn't been fit in order to answer emergency calls in the defence. All four senior centre-backs were out at the end of October to trigger City's slump in form and Ruben Dias and John Stones have both missed the last few weeks and are not back yet.

The Blues have already been busy in the January window, agreeing a £33.5m deal with Lens for Abdukodir Khusanov and speaking with Palmeiras over a deal for Vitor Reis. Neither are seen as players that could come in and instantly command a place in the starting lineup, and Kyle Walker could leave this month after handing in a transfer request.

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Guardiola retains faith in the squad that he has this season but admits that the club have to look to external solutions to the problems they have in defence. "From what I expected at the beginning of the season, Rodri to return is impossible but everyone else back is what I wanted," he said.

"If it had happened, we would not have gone to the transfer window and we would not be in the position that we are but we struggled a lot all season. People say Rodri but it's not just Rodri. We have had a lot of problems in the back four and still we have and that is why the club is thinking about what we are going to do in this window or maybe the summer.

"Where we are from the beginning of the season, it was the back and the middle. In terms of positions up front we are more or less okay but at the back, all season we have struggled."