Pep Guardiola has provided an injury update after Erling Haaland (£12.2m) was substituted at half-time of Manchester City’s goalless draw with Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.
The Norway international and Joao Cancelo (£7.4m) both came off at the interval in Germany, with Pep Guardiola bringing us the latest on his in-form forward in his post-match press conference.
“Three things. [Firstly], I saw him so tired. The second one he had a little bit influenza in his body, like Joao, Joao played with a fever. The third, he had a knock in his feet. That is why he was not able to play in the second half.
“I don’t know right now [about the severity of the injury]. I spoke [with the medical team] at half-time, they were a little bit concerned but I saw him walking more or less quite good at the end. We will see what happens.” – Pep Guardiola on Erling Haaland
The City boss had made similar comments in an interview with BT Sport immediately after full-time.
“Erling, he didn’t feel good, he had a little bit of fever before the game, Joao as well. Have a knock in his feet. I saw him tired, Joao as well. That’s why we change it. In that period, we struggle a lot.” – Pep Guardiola
Unless we’ve misheard Guardiola (you can watch the press conference here), there were also some slightly concerning quotes for owners of Phil Foden (£8.4m), who started on Tuesday after being benched in Gameweek 13.
“Today we were exhausted, the game against Brighton drained us a lot. Was so demanding, man to man, was physically so demanding. And [the] next Tuesday, we had a game now where we saw with Phil, he was so tired, so not clever. Joao, with fever, make an incredible effort. I want to say thank you to Joao because we have a problem with our full-backs, we don’t have Sergio [Gomez] or Kyle [Walker]. John [Stones] made an effort to come back.” – Pep Guardiola
City ensured that they would finish top of their Champions League group with a point in Dortmund and Guardiola confirmed that next Wednesday’s match against Sevilla, along with the following week’s Carabao Cup third-round tie, would feature some more peripheral squad players.
“Now we are going to play Sevilla with fresh people, people who don’t play regularly is going to play – the same with the Carabao Cup – and focus in the Premier League these three finals that we have.” – Pep Guardiola
WHEN WILL WE NEXT GET AN UPDATE ON HAALAND?
Pep Guardiola is expected to next face the media on Friday afternoon (UK time) in his pre-Gameweek 14 press conference.
WHO DO MAN CITY PLAY NEXT?
It’s Leicester City away for the reigning champions and perhaps significantly, the clash at the King Power Stadium is the lunchtime kick-off on Saturday.
There is always an increased (if not guaranteed) chance of early, pre-deadline team news with those 12.30pm BST matches, should there be any ambiguity about Haaland’s availability after Guardiola’s pre-match presser.
