Manchester City head into the FA Cup Final with Pep Guardiola yet to decide on a few spots in his starting XI
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Sport
Updated 08:21, 17 May 2025
Erling Haaland and Nico O'Reilly
Erling Haaland
Erling Haaland being Erling Haaland means that only a fool would choose to go into an important match without him. It would be the football equivalent of leaving your bazooka at home while you went to fight a war with a paperclip.
That has been the mantra at Manchester City since 2022 when Haaland joined from Dortmund. When he is fit, he starts because nobody else is as good at getting goals, or brutally taking a match away from opponents like he is.
And yet ever since he arrived, the discussion about whether City are a better team or not without him has never really gone away. It has largely bubbled under the surface but occasionally, as at Southampton at the weekend when Haaland's return from injury coincided with the worst team performance in weeks, it comes to the boil.
Things are easily forgotten in football, and it can't be ignored that the Blues were abject in front of goal when they drew at Old Trafford last month without Haaland, struggled to create chances against Everton and didn't take as many as they should have done against Leicester and Palace.
However, having found a system of working without the big No.9 it was hard not to link his inclusion in the team at St Mary's with the drab display that followed. Guardiola dismissed this, but at the same time did admit that the striker needs game time to return to his sharpest.
It remains unthinkable that Haaland does not start the FA Cup final even after missing the last six weeks, yet this has been a wildly unpredictable season. Who had Rico Lewis as the midfield saviour against Forest in the semi-final?
If Guardiola is to consider going without Haaland, he needs somebody who can have similar attributes that can help add to City's attack. Over the last month, that hasn't been Omar Marmoush or Kevin De Bruyne but Nico O'Reilly.
It has been the young 20-year-old who has popped up in the striker positions in the six-yard box ready to strike more than anybody else. That instinct earned a lake breakthrough at Goodison against Everton and at Southampton he was inches away from connecting with Haaland's ball across the box only seconds after coming on as a substitute.
O'Reilly may not be a No.9 but he is closer to one than he is a left-back, and his ability to get into the box is one that none of his teammates have done as well in Haaland's absence. In that time, nobody has more goal involvements than the four that O'Reilly has.
Any decision not to start Haaland for the final would be wild, instantly becoming a major talking point and becoming the main issue if City lost the final. Guardiola will be asked about the decision before the match, after the match, and possibly even in the days and weeks that follow.
As he looks to how City beat Palace last month though, they were able to score five goals without their main source of goals. If there is any chance of going without him on Saturday as he finds his feet again after injury, O'Reilly has to be involved as the closest thing City have to his predatory movement in the box.
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