Man City boss Guardiola jokes Haaland’s form is causing him sleepless nights

23 September 2023 , 00:00

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Man City boss Guardiola jokes Haaland’s form is causing him sleepless nights

Pep Guardiola jokes that Erling Haaland’s dip in form is causing him sleepless nights. But the Manchester City boss predicts the Norwegian’s critics will still end up owing him a huge apology this season.

Haaland leads the City line against Nottingham Forest on Saturday with an impressive seven goals from his opening five Premier League games. But his conversion rate is well down from last season - not that his manager is bothered.

Guardiola joked: “I will not sleep tonight! He has had incredible chances and he could have scored 14-15 goals and it would be the same debate. But what is important is what he always said: ‘I have the chance, I have the chance, I have the chance. The problem is when I do not have chances, or I do not get balls or I am in the wrong position.’

“My advice is don’t criticise Erling too much. Criticise the full back, the central defender or the manager, but never, ever the striker who scores goals because he will. And then you will be in a position where you have to apologise to him.”

Meanwhile, Jack Grealish could return for City after the England midfielder missed the treble winners' last three games with a knee injury and was also unavailable for international duty earlier this month.

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The 28-year-old is now back in training, easing manager Guardiola's injury concerns after Bernardo Silva this week joined a casualty list that also includes Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Mateo Kovacic.

Guardiola added: "We need the injured players back because we have a lot of games and we cannot play with the same players. Jack is coming back. He has trained well and maybe he will be ready for some minutes. Kova is almost there, he's in the last part of the recovery but now we've lost Bernardo. John and Kevin are still out."

Silva left the field in little obvious discomfort towards the end of the first half of Tuesday's Champions League win over Red Star Belgrade at the Etihad Stadium. Guardiola has since given little information on the nature of the Portugal international's problem other than to confirm he faces a short spell on the sidelines.

He said: "He has a little injury. It is nothing much. The clinical development is good but it could be one week, 10 days, two weeks that he will be out."

Ian Whittell