Pep Guardiola has offered an injury update following the substitution of Erling Haaland (£12.2m) at halftime of Manchester City’s goalless draw with Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.
Both the Norwegian international and Joao Cancelo (£7.4m) were taken off at halftime in Germany, with Pep Guardiola providing an update on his in-form striker in his post-match press conference.
“Three things. [Firstly], I saw him so tired. The second one he had a little bit influenza in his body, like Joao, Joao played with a fever. The third, he had a knock in his feet. That is why he was not able to play in the second half.
“I don’t know right now [about the severity of the injury]. I spoke [with the medical team] at half-time, they were a little bit concerned but I saw him walking more or less quite good at the end. We will see what happens.” – Pep Guardiola on Erling Haaland
The City boss had made similar comments in an interview with BT Sport immediately after full-time.
“Erling, he didn’t feel good, he had a little bit of fever before the game, Joao as well. Have a knock in his feet. I saw him tired, Joao as well. That’s why we change it. In that period, we struggle a lot.” – Pep Guardiola
Unless we’ve misheard Guardiola, there were also some slightly concerning quotes for owners of Phil Foden (£8.4m), who started on Tuesday after being benched in Gameweek 13.
“Today we were exhausted, the game against Brighton drained us a lot. Was so demanding, man to man, was physically so demanding. And [the] next Tuesday, we had a game now where we saw with Phil, he was so tired, so not clever.
“Joao, with fever, make an incredible effort. I want to say thank you to Joao because we have a problem with our full-backs, we don’t have Sergio [Gomez] or Kyle [Walker]. John [Stones] made an effort to come back.” – Pep Guardiola
City ensured that they would finish top of their Champions League group with a point in Dortmund and Guardiola confirmed that next Wednesday’s match against Sevilla, along with the following week’s Carabao Cup third-round tie, would feature some more peripheral squad players.
“Now we are going to play Sevilla with fresh people, people who don’t play regularly is going to play – the same with the Carabao Cup – and focus in the Premier League these three finals that we have.” – Pep Guardiola
Pep Guardiola is expected to next face the media on Friday afternoon (UK time) in his pre-Gameweek 14 press conference.