Pep Guardiola reveals plans to start rotating Erling Haaland
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has revealed that Erling Haaland will be rested as soon as fixture demands increase in order to protect him from getting injured.
Haaland arrived at City during the summer as one of the top strikers in world football. The Norwegian scored almost a goal per game last season for Borussia Dortmund but was limited to just 30 appearances in all competitions because of several spells out injured.
So far this season, Haaland has already started all three of City’s Premier League games, plus the Community Shield. But City have only been playing once a week.
Once that changes – the start of the Champions League group stage and City’s involvement in the Carabao Cup from the third round stage – Guardiola has a plan not to overuse his star number nine, who completed 90 minutes against Newcastle for the first time in a Premier League game.
“Good food, good rest. People say the apartment he’s bought has a good bed. Nothing special. What is important is he doesn’t have niggles. The physios and doctors did an incredible job since he arrived to avoid injuries,” Guardiola said after City’s 3-3 draw at St James’ Park.
"Now he has one game a week. I tell you now when we have games every three days that Erling will not play,” the City boss continued.
“I will play Julian [Alvarez]. One of my favourite players is Bernardo [Silva] and he did not play until today. Riyad [Mahrez] is by far one of my favourite players - especially on the biggest stages - and today he didn’t play. When we start with games every three days, everyone is going to play.”