Erling Haaland is a doubt for Manchester City’s Premier League showdown with Liverpool this weekend. Haaland suffered a knee issue during last weekend’s 4-0 win over Newcastle and appeared to be in some discomfort before being replaced by Mateo Kovacic in the closing stages.
When speaking afterwards, Pep Guardiola issued a positive update on the Man City striker: "When he went down everyone was scared. But he walked off smiling and the doctor didn’t tell me bad news so hopefully he is fine.”. Optimism over Haaland grew at the beginning of the week as he took part in a training session and was subsequently named in the squad that flew to Spain for the crucial Champions League knockout play-off round second-leg decider against Real Madrid.
However, when the lineups were announced, Haaland was named only as a substitute. Furthermore, he remained on the bench throughout as Man City suffered a 6-3 aggregate defeat to crash out of the Champions League. "Not far off, was close but not enough. He trained a bit yesterday, but we spoke yesterday, this morning, and he said he doesn't feel good so another one," said Guardiola ahead of kick-off when explaining why Haaland was left on the bench.
“Of course Erling is massively important for us, you don't need to be a manager to realise, but it is what it is, during the seasons it happens, we are used this season to many cases and it could not be differently today.”. Inevitably given Haaland’s lack of minutes in the Santiago Bernabeu, there are concerns that he may not be fit for Liverpool’s visit to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
As things stand, and taking into consideration that Haaland was on the bench on Wednesday night, he’s probably 50-50 to feature at the weekend. Whether that be as a starter is another question as the update from Guardiola following the Real Madrid clash didn’t sound too positive.
“Erling, yesterday, tried to train after the action against Newcastle in the last minutes,” the Spaniard told reporters. “Probably, with the images (scans) we have done, it’s fine but he has discomfort walking, for example with stairs, and we spoke yesterday and this morning and he said he’s not ready, he doesn’t feel good.”.
