Pep Guardiola gives injury updates on Erling Haaland, John Stones & Manuel Akanji ahead of Tottenham

Pep Guardiola has given an injury update on Erling Haaland, John Stones and Manuel Akanji ahead of Manchester City's trip to Tottenham Hotspur on Friday.

The trio missed the Blues' last game, the 3-2 win over Newcastle United, through injury and Guardiola revealed only Stones will be available at Spurs.

Haaland has sat out the last nine games in all competitions due to a foot injury but returned to training earlier this week in Abu Dhabi and it was hoped he would be available for the FA Cup fourth-round tie.

But speaking on Thursday, Guardiola said the game comes too soon for the Norwegian no.9: "He is on the verge of coming back. Tomorrow he is not ready but he is close. Training camp was good, he trained some sessions, the last few days here he trained, butit is not perfect and we will wait a little bit more.

"Manuel is out and John is coming back into the team selection," he added, while confirming Ederson is available after he was replaced early against Newcastle.

Stones last played on 27 December in the win over Everton and was replaced in the latter stages of the FA Cup, while Akanji picked up a knock against Huddersfield Town three weeks ago.

Guardiola will also hope to end his hoodoo against Tottenham and the Catalan has lost on all five occasions that he has visited Spurs' new Stadium.

"That is the reality, how tough it for us," he said. "Of course it is a final, it is a knockout stage and to go through you have to score goals, otherwise it is not possible.

"Always it is a new opportunity to break it and the feeling is most of the times we were exceptional… exceptional is not the right word because we could not win but we played really good.

"You see how we played and the stats, I don’t believe much in the stats but the way we behave and the way we play was good. But the reality is that, no goals and six defeats. They are much better than us."