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Manchester City will be without 30-goal striker Erling Haaland until May at the earliest.
Manchester City are among the teams Newcastle United are competing with for Champions League qualification.
Due to UEFA coefficient rules, a top-five finish in the Premier League is all but certain to secure a place in next season’s Champions League. As it stands, Newcastle are sixth in the table, one point behind fifth-place Man City with a game in-hand.
And in a potential boost to the Magpies’ chances, Pep Guardiola’s side will be without top scorer Erling Haaland for a sustained period after he sustained an ankle injury in Sunday’s 2-1 FA Cup quarter-final win away to AFC Bournemouth.
The Norwegian scored his 30th goal of the campaign by equalising at the Vitality Stadium before needing to withdraw. His replacement Omar Marmoush then netted the winner to set up a Wembley semi-final against Nottingham Forest.
Manchester City provide Erling Haaland injury update
Haaland will miss that game, as well as several others, though it is hoped he can return for the final on May 17 - should Man City be in it.
Providing an update ahead of Man City’s against Leicester City on Wednesday night, Guardiola said: “The doctors told me between five and seven weeks. So hopefully for the end of season and FIFA Club World Cup he will be ready.
“Sometimes there are years where these kinds of things happen. It’s happened all season. I would say it could have been different if it was at the end of season.
“All injuries that happen all season I am sorry for them and I am sorry for Erling too. As quick a recovery as possible to come back. We don’t have another player with his skills or specific qualities we know that but we have to adapt.
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“For many years we play with different ways up front and it depends on the qualities of the players we’re going to find another solution. We will find a solution for the players that we have with different skills and qualities. We will find that.”
Champions League is ‘game-changing’ for Newcastle United
The importance of qualifying for the Champions League isn’t lost on Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe, who described it as “game-changing”.
Howe said: “There's no doubting the power of Champions League football. It could be game-changing in terms of revenue and also in terms of what it means and the competition, and then of course the changes that you have to make to be ready for Champions League football. That changes everything, as we found last year to our cost to some degree with the extra game, so there's a lot to think about.
But for us, qualifying for that is going to be very, very difficult. There are, as we know, 10 games, there are a lot of teams competing for those places. It's one of the tightest Premier Leagues that we've seen in recent times, very little between the teams competing for those places, so it's going to come down to who is the most consistent.
““Of course, we want that to be us and in those 10 games, we are going to have to give everything to get there.
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