MY ACCOUNT
Pep Guardiola is unsure on the severity of Erling Haaland’s injury ahead of Manchester City’s crucial clash with Arsenal.
City got back to winning ways with a 3-1 victory over Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
With Arsenal having dropped points against Brentford on Saturday, a win at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday would see City move top of the Premier League, albeit the Gunners would still have a game in hand.
Yet Haaland’s status for that game is unclear after the striker, who assisted Ilkay Gundogan for City’s second goal, went off at half-time against Villa with a knock.
“I don’t know, he had a big knock, he was uncomfortable,” Guardiola, who was managing his 250th Premier League game, told Sky Sports when asked about Haaland.
“At 3-0 we didn’t want to take a big risk. We will see, we will assess in the next days.
“If he’s not ready, we;ll play another one. Hopefully he’s ready, like everyone. We’ll see what it is.”
Haaland cut a frustrated figure against Tottenham last week but was more involved against Villa, with his team-mates seemingly quicker to attempt to find their star striker, who now has 29 goal contributions in the Premier League this season, 11 more than any other player in the competition.
“His presence is really good,” added Guardiola. “When we have no pressure on the ball, when the opponent has a high line, we will be able to find him even more. We will do it in the future.”
Haaland might have got on the scoresheet had Riyad Mahrez, who teed up Rodri’s opener, not taken the ball for the penalty for City’s third goal.
The former Borussia Dortmund striker seemed perplexed, but nevertheless celebrated with Mahrez after the winger slammed home the spot-kick.
Asked for his view on the incident, Guardiola said: “I don’t know, I need to talk to them. Normally Erling is the first taker, Riyad is the second one – Rodri was involved. We will see what they say.”
While City could be top of the table by full-time on Wednesday, Guardiola is just glad his side have managed to keep themselves within touching distance, having failed to take advantage when Arsenal lost to Everton last week.
“They have one game in hand. Last season, we had 12, 14 points in front of Liverpool but they had two or three games in hand,” Guardiola said.
“We will see when the Premier League is finished. We will go to London to try and win the game.
“When one team has 50 points it is because they are doing really, really well. Finally, when they dropped points we were there to reduce the difference.
“In the past all the time when they dropped points we failed. Finally we could do it. Mainly because the performance was really good.”
While all three of City’s goals came before the break, Guardiola was happier with his team’s second-half display, despite Ollie Watkins scoring a consolation for Villa.
Sunday’s match came against the backdrop of City having been accused of breaching over 100 of the Premier League’s financial regulations between 2009 and 2018, something the club has denied.
The home crowd jeered the Premier League anthem ahead of kick-off, and Guardiola was delighted with the atmosphere.
“The support was really good before,” he added.
“I know they know our team score goals, we had many chances, unfortunately we could not always finish it. In general, a really good game.”
