Pep Guardiola is yet to decide on whether he will field Erling Haaland for Manchester City’s home game against Nottingham Forest, where a win would shift the pressure back onto Arsenal in the Premier League title race.
Pep Guardiola is yet to decide on whether he will field Erling Haaland for Manchester City’s home game against Nottingham Forest, where a win would shift the pressure back onto Arsenal in the Premier League title race.
The Norway international was left out of the squad that travelled to West Yorkshire on Saturday to face Leeds United, with Antoine Semenyo scoring his sixth goal in all competitions since his £65 million move from Bournemouth to earn all three points for the Citizens.
Recent signings such as Rayan Cherki, Semenyo and Tijjani Reijnders — who joined the club for a combined £145.3 million — have often been a saviour for Guardiola when Haaland’s goalscoring has slowed or been nullified by opponents with strong predictability, and the City manager may have to rely on them once more on Wednesday at the Etihad Stadium.
“He feels much better, but yesterday we didn’t train, and now we have training,” Guardiola said on Haaland’s condition on Tuesday afternoon. “We’ll decide today.”
When asked about Nico O’Reilly, who was feared to have an extensive ankle problem after being forced off at Elland Road in the 70th minute, Guardiola said: “The same, the same. We’ll decide after training.”
Wednesday offers City the opportunity to close the gap to Arsenal to two points again, at least until the contest between the Gunners and Brighton & Hove Albion concludes around the same time as the Citizens’ meeting with Forest.
Still, Guardiola will be trying to suppress the threat that the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson exhibit. Their main objective, of course, is not to drop more points, which could effectively hand Arsenal the league sooner than expected.
“The result is that the players are better than you expect, and of course, they play for important things like us and now starts an important part of the season,” Guardiola said. “When you arrive in the last 10 games of the season, now it’s really [time to] start to be decisive, every point.
“We have six games in this month, two in the Premier League before the international break, and it’s really important the condition that we are five points behind Arsenal, so we cannot drop points.”