Pep believes City ready to go again after ‘sweating’ to catalyst win at Luton Guardiola eyes winning run to chase down leaders
CITY will assess Erling Haaland but Pep Guardiola indicated that he may not be fit enough to take part in the Club World Cup.
Haaland has missed the last two matches with a foot injury and didn’t travel with the squad for the Champions League game against Crvena Zvezda in Belgrade.
The Norwegian was in Marbella instead for treatment, and only returned to the club yesterday.
He will be assessed by the doctors upon his return but Guardiola is not expecting the striker to come back imminently given his awareness of the injury and the situation so far.
While Haaland is expected to travel with the group to Saudi Arabia for the Club World Cup next week, City will leave it up to the striker to decide when he feels comfortable enough to play.
“He arrived today and the doctors will see him and we will see how he feels,” Guardiola said ahead of the Crystal Palace game. “He had treatment away.
“Hopefully he can travel to Saudi and we will see if he is able to play in the first game or the second game, or when we come back. I don’t think he will play [against Palace] but maybe he surprises me.
“Sometimes players recover quickly, sometimes longer. Day by day, week by week, how he feels. The moment he doesn’t have pain he will play.”
City will resume their Premier League title defence against Palace today. The Blues are currently four points behind league leaders Liverpool.
KENILWORTH Road, with its’ quaint away end, wooden seats and tiny dressing room had all the makings of an upset for City last week.
The wind and rain was howling, City were reeling themselves after four games without a win, Erling Haaland was injured, and the home fans sensed something special could happen against the bruised defending champions having taken Arsenal until the 96th minute days before.
A huge flag in the corner of the old main stand at Luton read: ‘Luton Town, Betrayed by the FA 2008,’ with the Hatters’ songbook still not forgiving the FA and EFL for their massive 30-point deduction that saw them, unsurprisingly, relegated from League Two in the same year City became the richest club in the world.
The sense of an upset, in as close to a cup atmosphere as it’s possible to get in the Premier League, increased when Luton took the lead last Sunday.
But City hit back, did what they needed to to win, and have since put that blip behind them. Guardiola saw a quality he liked last week, and one of his captains believes their relentless winning machine is close to starting up again.
“I like the feeling that going to Luton Town is extremely complicated,” Guardiola said on Friday after City followed up their win at Kenilworth Road with a fine win against Red Star with a second-string side.
“I want back the feeling that winning there [Luton], sweating, I like that. The feeling that it’s difficult, it will be tomorrow [vs Crystal Palace]. Always have our success came from that, don’t leave it for granted, for what people say, or the other opinions that it’s easy because we won it in the past. To realise that you have to lose games, you have to think ‘wow, we are in a problem, four games without winning in the PL.’ It’s necessary. It’s really, really necessary.”
Rodri – City’s Champions League matchwinner – agrees, and believes it won’t be long before the Blues start to put a winning run together like they often do around this time of year. After back-to-back wins alleviated the crisis (in Jack Grealish’s words), City have eight of their next nine Premier League games against bottom half sides, plus an FA Cup third round clash against Championship relegation battlers Huddersfield. “Since the first year I came here I had the feeling that every year is not enough and you have to improve,” Rodri said.
“If you are at the same level as [previous] champions because you were champions in the past, you are not going to achieve it again. You have to increase, upgrade, the players coming in have to be even better and give to the team.
“Of course, we have to be all fit if we want to achieve it. I think in this moment the [injured] players are coming back, understanding each other and having the results with two to three months playing
I want that feeling back, winning there, Luton, sweating, I like that