MY ACCOUNT
Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City have enjoyed “incredible” success in keeping Erling Haaland fit, claiming his occasional early withdrawals of the striker have been justified.
Haaland sustained several injuries during his prolific two-year spell at Borussia Dortmund, netting 22 goals despite only starting 21 Bundesliga games in his final season with BVB.
However, only Ederson (2,610) and Rodri (2,407) have played more Premier League minutes for City than Haaland this term (2,187) as Guardiola’s men bid for a fifth title in six seasons.
Haaland has averaged a goal every 72.9 minutes in his first Premier League campaign, and Guardiola says City have a host of medical professionals to thank for his continued availability.
“I don’t know what he did in Dortmund but we take care of him 24 hours – we have incredible doctors and physios. They are behind him every second of the day,” Guardiola said.
“It’s difficult to understand why you would spend a lot of money [on players] and then leave them, but I don’t know what the other clubs do.
“With this demanding schedule of games every three or four days we have to take care of them with nutrition, rest, sleep, food.
“For the training, how many minutes – there is data. Sometimes they cannot train more than 10 or 15 minutes.”
Guardiola has been criticised for denying Haaland the opportunity to further his goalscoring exploits by substituting him early in some games – most notably when the Norwegian had helped himself to five goals within 57 minutes of a 7-0 Champions League win over RB Leipzig.
The City boss maintains those decisions are taken with the player’s condition in mind and believes they have been justified.
“People say, ‘Why was he subbed against Leipzig when he’d scored all the goals?’ But then he was injured after the Burnley game,” Guardiola said.
“He could not play with us against Liverpool or for Norway. We know we have to keep a watch because he’s so big. Physios, massage, back, shoulders, tendons… everything.
“He works so much inside the training centre, much more than on the pitch. Today in modern football, players train more behind the scenes than on the pitch.”
Haaland has scored 30 Premier League goals ahead of Saturday’s game against Leicester City, with only Andrew Cole enjoying a more prolific debut campaign in the competition (34 in 1993-94).
