Haaland must rediscover touch to fire City back on course after run of defeats

PEP Guardiola laughed off the idea that Erling Haaland needs a break after footage of an apparent injury emerged from training this week.

- JOE BRAY

Haaland went down in front of the cameras, holding his shin before smiling with Phil Foden and carrying on the session as normal. Was this Haaland letting the media in on an inside joke? Was he actually briefly injured before realising the cameras were on? We will never know, but Guardiola dismissed the media attention around the 'injury' as a desperate need for news around the clock where it doesn't exist and Haaland played 90 minutes the following day at Sporting as City slumped to a dismal defeat.

That game didn't exactly go to plan. Haaland had chances in an open game but was either wasteful or denied by good goalkeeping (or the crossbar from 12 yards).

It followed a similar outing at Bournemouth where City's struggles extended to their star striker.