Pep Guardiola "sad and sorry" for preventing Riyad Mahrez from being part of the Manchester City team

Pep Guardiola says he is "sad" and "sorry" that the Manchester City record coach, Riyad Mahrez, has not started a Premier League game since the end of December.

Mahrez left Leicester for £ 60 million last summer and was ultimately the only senior rookie of the Premier League champions, after the fall of Jorginho.

The Algerian started to find his place next to Guardiola in the fall, but he had more trouble finding matches at Christmas and he has virtually disappeared from the Premier League in the last six weeks.

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Guardiola chose the 27-year-old for the four FA Cup and Carabao Cup games in January, but ruled him out to face Huddersfield and kept him on the bench against Liverpool, Wolves , Newcastle and Everton.

Following Huddersfield's match, Goal said Mahrez was unhappy with his play time in the league. Since then, he has to settle for late cameos against Arsenal and Chelsea.

Guardiola was initially shy when asked why Mahrez had not played, before insisting that the winger had not done anything wrong and that it was wrong. Was not angry, although he urged him to "continue and not complain too much".

"Yes, I have a reason," Guardiola said at his press conference. Pushed further, he continued, "My reason, I am the reason, I am the reason, He is not absolutely guilty or he does not feel any particular reason for it.

"I'm sad because he's coaching incredibly – he's an incredibly talented player, but right now we have five forwards, for example Leroy's last games." [Sane] did not play either. We have incredible players, like for example Bernardo [Silva] and Raz [Sterling] are up, fit and that's the only reason why, there is no particular reason like being upset or something like that.

"He's a guy who makes us happy, but unfortunately I'm not nice to him, I can not give him the minutes he deserves, so I'm sorry, that's all I can say. "

Guardiola also insists that if Mahrez had had a consistent series of matches, he would perform at the same high level as his teammates.

"I'm not right in the fact that had he played the minutes that the others had played, he would have been at the highest level like the players who play," he added.

"It's not easy for a guy who does not play regularly to come in and play at a high level." He has a level but gives him five or six games in a row playing at the level from Sterling or Bernardo or the players who play, because in two months, when we played four or five consecutive games, he was incredible, exceptional.

"I have no doubts about his quality, just to keep going, do not complain too much, go ahead and fight more and more, his time is coming in. It's coming and I'm pretty much sure he'll play well. "

Guardiola also says that he "misses" the presence of Benjamin Mendy in the City team, but that he can not "cry" because of the way they have him. replaced and continued to fight for trophies.

Mendy is about to make a comeback after a knee injury, after a 27-minute exit in the Carabao Cup semi-final at the end of January, to miss the next five games.

He will not be playing against Newport in the FA Cup on Saturday though Goal knows that he will return to the full practice next week.

"I have often said that we were missing, I miss him," said the Catalan. "He gives us something special, but he's been hurt for a long time and he can not come back and play immediately, he has to be in the rhythm of what we want to do."

"But at the same time, during these two seasons, we can not complain too much, in the sense that we have solved it, with Fabian [Delph], with Oleks [Zinchenko], with Danilo and another solution with Ayme [Laporte]but of course he is the only natural player in this position and hopefully he will come back.

"We miss him but we can not cry because he's not here, we have to move on, wait for him, [he has to] get ready and come back, he will be fit, understand what we want to do and fight for his companion to take his position. "