Pep Guardiola Drops Ominous Erling Haaland Injury Update for Real Madrid Tie

Haaland missed Manchester City’s FA Cup victory over Newcastle United which took place just four days ahead of the Champions League tie in Spain.

Erling Haaland has only scored one non-penalty goal against Real Madrid. | Mark Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola confirmed that Erling Haaland would not only be fit for Wednesday’s Champions League tie with Real Madrid but warned that his star striker would be at his sharpest for the mouth-watering European clash.

Fears over Haaland’s involvement heightened when the burly Norwegian was left out of City’s squad entirely for Saturday’s FA Cup victory over Newcastle United. However, Guardiola clarified after the 3–1 win that he had always intended to rest his top scorer.

“I didn’t think to let him play and I prefer him training to make a rhythm,” the Catalan coach told assembled reporters. “After injury, when he drops, he always struggles to have that real pace.” Much to Real Madrid’s chargin, he should now be up to speed.

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Guardiola Heeds Haaland Warnings

Pep Guardiola (left) has taken a cautious approach with Erling Haaland. | Visionhaus/Getty Images

Haaland has dipped in and out of City’s team in recent weeks. Guardiola predictably left his No. 9 out of the FA Cup fourth round clash with fourth-tier Salford City before bringing him back in for the Premier League visit of Newcastle last month. Haaland was locked in a meaty physical battle with the towering Magpies center back Dan Burn for 90 grueling minutes at the Etihad.

Newcastle adopted an aggressive man-marking approach that night—a tactic which is increasingly common across the Premier League and one which Mikel Arteta has blamed for the rise of set-piece dependency—as Burn latched himself onto Haaland like a Geordie limpet.

“We have to make an alternative to long balls with Erling when he’s up against a player like Burn,” Guardiola fretted, “otherwise every three days doing that for a striker like Erling, it’s not sustainable.

“We have to make an alternative so we still have a dream for him to play and play more, and with man marking that’s difficult.”

City had seven days to prepare for the trip to Leeds United’s Elland Road yet that still wasn’t enough time for Haaland to recover from his bruising encounter with Burn. The 25-year-old was fit enough to play the full 90 minutes against Nottingham Forest in City’s subsequent match but, to avoid overloading him once again, Guardiola adopted a cautious approach for another trip to St James’s Park.

If anyone is to question the master tactician’s decisions, they need just look at recent history.

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Man City Drawing Upon Champion History for Season’s Run-In

Pep Guardiola’s dreams of a quadruple are still alive. | Paul Currie/AFP/Getty Images

City and Guardiola have been there and done it before. The perennial Premier League champions are forever accused of coming into new seasons undercooked only to deliberately tailor their fitness regime to peak when it comes to the most important months of the campaign—like right now.

“We have experience of that with the treble—you have to arrive in the decisive moment of the season with players,” Guardiola pointed out. “It’s a pity that the Premier League is not in our hands. That is a big drop against Nottingham [Forest] but don’t think much, recover, go to Madrid, make a good selection and hopefully we can behave—win or lose—in the way we are.

“That’s always been my focus, when we play on the biggest stages against the big teams it’s not about winning or losing but being who we are as individuals and as a team.”

At a time when every Arsenal match appears to feature a player going down holding a different part of their body, City are emptying their treatment room.

Nathan Aké and John Stones, two injury-riddled pillars of that treble-winning side, made rare starts against Newcastle at the weekend. Jérémy Doku was in fine form scurrying down the left wing on his first start since a calf injury wiped out February while Savinho bundled the ball into the net having shaken off a thigh issue.

Guardiola has lamented about how City’s recent tactics have been dictated by the limited number of players he has at his disposal, which makes the club’s run of seven wins from their previous eight games all the more impressive. With more options at his disposal, Guardiola’s array of attacking weapons has widened. However, Haaland still remains the most valuable of them all.

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