Pep Guardiola’s team host Fulham at 3pm on Saturday (Picture: Getty Images)
Four Manchester City players will miss the Premier League meeting with Fulham on Saturday, but Erling Haaland is fit and available.
There was some concern over the prolific Norwegian after he suffered a knock to the ankle against Newcastle last weekend.
Haaland did start against Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League on Tuesday night and scored City’s third goal in a 4-0 rout before being taken off after 60 minutes.
That was just a precaution, though, with Guardiola confirming that his star striker will be available agaisnt the Cottagers, telling a press conference on Friday: ‘Erling is fine.’
However, Kevin De Bruyne is still struggling with a thigh issue and won’t be involved this weekend, nor will Nathan Ake, Rodri or Oscar Bobb.
‘Everyone else except Nathan, Kevin, Rodri and Oscar. The rest are OK,” said Guardiola. ‘Kevin is not ready for tomorrow.’
It is no great surprise that the Belgian will not be involved as he missed the game in Bratislava and Guardiola said of him earlier in the week: ‘Hopefully after the international break he [Kevin] will be back.’
De Bruyne has only played in four of City’s Premier League games so far this season, not turning out in the top flight since the 2-1 win over Brentford on 14 September. He picked up his current injury problem against Inter Milan in the Champions League on 18 September.
De Bruyne has not played since 18 September against Inter Milan (Picture: Getty Images)
Manchester City have won their last 16 meetings with Fulham, which represents the longest ever run of consecutive wins by one English team over another.
However, Guardiola had only praise for the Cottagers, picking out some specific threats and players he admires in Marco Silva’s side.
‘Marco Silva has already spent a few years there in London and they bought interesting players there, especially [Joachim] Andersen and other experienced guys,’ he said.
‘It’s always a team that creates a lot of problems. They have a lot of weapons, speed – [Alex] Iwobi, the form he is playing, the speed from Adama Traore always creates a problem, the structure defensively, that is my only concern.
‘What they do, not what happened in the past.’
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