Erling Haaland was the key factor for Manchester City to achieve the historic treble in the 2022-2023 season. In fact, his extraordinary performances led him to finish in second place of the Ballon d’Or voting, only behind Lionel Messi.
However, last month, Haaland suffered a foot injury during a game against Aston Villa. Despite the initial diagnosis not appearing serious, the forward has been unable to return.
The most incredible aspect of the situation is that, even sidelined for weeks, Erling Haaland remains the top scorer in the Premier League for the 2023-2024 season. He has 14 goals, tied with Mohamed Salah of Liverpool.
Now, just when Manchester City believed they were going to get back Haaland for the start of the most crucial stretch of the season, Pep Guardiola confirmed bad news regarding the health of the star.
Why is Erling Haaland not playing with Manchester City?
Erling Haaland suffered a foot injury on December 6th during the match between Manchester City and Aston Villa in the Premier League. At first, Pep Guardiola thought the striker would be ready for the FIFA Club World Cup. That didn’t happen.
“He couldn’t walk properly. I don’t know the extent of the injury. We have to take it week by week, day by day, and see what happens. Hopefully, we’ll recover him for the Club World Cup.”
Now, more than a month later, Erling Haaland has still not returned, and ahead of the match against Newcastle, Pep Guardiola provided a discouraging update. Another setback in his recovery.
“A little bit of disturbing problems in his foot. It’s fine. The doctors decided to stop for one week and maybe restart in Abu Dhabi. 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.”
Despite Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden playing extraordinarily well without Haaland, Guardiola admitted that Erling is the key difference if Manchester City aim to defend their titles.
“We need him. Hopefully he can come back and play the last four or five months without a problem. Now we have two games but when you are injured at end of November, you miss a lot of games. And we missed him.”
