A flat showing away at Leeds underlined why supporters have been keen to see Erling Haaland back in the Manchester City front line. Haaland was left out for the trip to Elland Road and watched from the sidelines as Antoine Semenyo netted the only goal of an uncomfortable 1\u20130 victory.<\/p>\n
Nottingham Forest arrive on Wednesday and the central question among fans is simple: will Haaland play? His fitness and selection look set to dominate Pep Guardiola\u2019s pre-match press conference on Tuesday. Until then, the manager\u2019s remarks after the Leeds game are the clearest public indication of the striker\u2019s status.<\/p>\n
Asked specifically whether Haaland would be back in time to face Forest, Guardiola\u2019s response on Saturday gave nothing away. \u201cI don\u2019t have any answer right now,\u201d he insisted. \u201cWe have four days before Nottingham Forest and after, three days to the FA Cup at Newcastle.\u201d He did, however, offer some reassurance by describing the problem as \u201cnot a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola\u2019s approach to covering for Haaland against Leeds surprised some supporters. Omar Marmoush was used as part of the attacking setup. The expensive Egyptian is the only other natural striker in the squad and has been waiting for opportunities in attack, having been forced into accepting the same midfield role occupied by his predecessor, Juli\u00e1n Alvarez, as it quickly became clear there is no displacing a healthy Haaland in the squad.<\/p>\n
With minutes and results both at a premium, City must balance the immediate need to secure points with the management of Haaland\u2019s condition across a busy schedule. Guardiola\u2019s comments leave room for optimism, but they also mean definitive confirmation of Haaland\u2019s involvement will have to wait until closer to kick-off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Haaland was left out at Leeds and watched Semenyo’s winner; Guardiola gave no clear answer. Fans ask<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,298,969],"tags":[801,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-7349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-nottingham-forest","category-premier-league","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7349","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=7349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}