Pep Guardiola offered little by way of certainty when asked whether Erling Haaland would be available for Manchester City\u2019s Premier League meeting with Bournemouth on Sunday. On the single-word reply he could offer, Guardiola said: “I hope so.” <\/p>\n
City enter the fixture fifth in the early table, hosting a Bournemouth side that sit one place and four points adrift of league-leading Arsenal. The Cherries have been unbeaten in the league since the opening weekend Anfield defeat to Liverpool. Manager Andoni Iraola draws inspiration from Marcelo Bielsa, and Bournemouth have produced the most aggressive off-the-ball approach in the Premier League this season. <\/p>\n
Guardiola acknowledged the difficulty of the match and the value of Haaland to his side. Haaland has scored 15 goals across 12 appearances in the Premier League and Champions League. “No one else in City\u2019s squad has mustered more than one in those competitions” was a fact underlining his influence on the frontline. <\/p>\n
Omar Marmoush started up front in Haaland\u2019s absence and scored his first goal of the season in Wednesday\u2019s nervy Carabao Cup victory. Marmoush was brought in as Juli\u00e1n Alvarez\u2019s belated replacement and offers a theoretical option to play instead of or alongside Haaland. Marmoush has not started a league game since August and, notably, Bournemouth were the last Premier League team to concede a goal scored by Marmoush. <\/p>\n
Guardiola praised both players\u2019 qualities in his postgame remarks. He said: “Maybe at the end when we win the Premier League 10 points in front, 10 games to go, after he will rest.” He added: “With Erling, he knows perfectly how to be patient, how to be in small spaces, how to be consistent, to go to the ones in behind,” Guardiola gushed postgame. “Marmoush has been injured for a long time and of course, playing in the position that Erling plays, and Erling is important, but we know in many games we need both and having him back is so nice.” <\/p>\n
The manager faces the prospect of preparing his team for a full-throttle Bournemouth press, ideally with his talisman available to lead the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola offers brief update on Haaland’s availability ahead of Man City v Bournemouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,238,172],"tags":[1066,1047,1196],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-carabao-cup","tag-champions-league","tag-erling-haaland-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}