Pep Guardiola has revealed Erling Haaland has endured a setback in his recovery from a foot injury. Manchester City’s manager said the striker was unable to train this week and would not play before the end of the month.
Haaland, City’s top scorer with 19 goals in 22 appearances this season, made his most recent appearance in the 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on 6 December. He has missed eight games and is in line to sit out at least three more.
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“He had a little bit of a problem with his feet and the doctors decided to stop for a week and restart in Abu Dhabi,” the manager said, looking ahead to the winter break. “Hopefully at the end of this month he will be ready. It was a little bit more than we expected in the beginning with the bone. Every injury, you can do what you want but it is a question of time. At the end of this month, maybe he will be ready to come back.”
After Saturday’s trip to Newcastle for the late kick-off City will fly to Abu Dhabi for warm weather training before travelling to Tottenham in the FA Cup fourth round on 26 January and hosting Burnley in the Premier League on the final day of the month. City have won seven and drawn one of their recent eight games without Haaland.
Manuel Akanji, who took a knock in Sunday’s 5-0 win over Huddersfield, is also unavailable until next month. “He will be out for a few weeks,” Guardiola said. “It’s not a big blow but until the end of the month. I don’t know if he will be ready for Spurs or Burnley. Now we are lucky that we don’t have games in the next 10 days after Newcastle but we will see after Abu Dhabi in good weather how we feel.”