Pep Guardiola confirms Erling Haaland injury setback with Man City defender also ruled out v Newcastle

Pep Guardiola has confirmed Erling Haaland has suffered a setback in his recovery from a foot injury.

The Manchester City striker had been back in training last week and many presumed he would be available to face Newcastle United on Saturday. However, speaking in Friday’s pre-match press conference, Guardiola confirmed that Haaland would not be back in time for the trip to the North East.

Guardiola was pushed for further details in the second part of the media briefing, and the City boss said his no.9 has not trained this week and aggravated the problem.

“A little bit of disturbing problems in his feet,” Guardiola explained. “It’s fine. The doctors decided to stop for one week and maybe restart in Abu Dhabi [next week]. 

“Hopefully at the end of this month he’ll be ready. It was a little bit more than we expected in the beginning. It’s a bone, it needs time. Every injury you can do whatever you want but it’s a question of time.

“When you are injured at the end of November, you miss a lot of games,” Guardiola added, with Haaland’s injury meaning he will miss a ninth consecutive game. “And we missed him.”

Guardiola also confirmed Manuel Akanji is set to sit out Saturday’s game through injury, joining John Stones and Haaland on the sidelines. The Swiss defender was replaced in the first half against Huddersfield last week after he was on the receiving end of a strong challenge from Alex Matos.

“Manu is injured. An action against Huddersfield, he will be some weeks out, said Guardiola.

“It’s not a big problem but until the end of the month. I don’t know [if he’ll be back] against Spurs or Burnley. Now we’re lucky that we don’t have games in the next 10 days after Newcastle. We’ll see how they feel in the good weather.”