{"id":3522,"date":"2023-04-07T14:30:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T14:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-citys-haaland-fit-to\/"},"modified":"2023-04-07T14:31:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T14:31:44","slug":"soccer-citys-haaland-fit-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-citys-haaland-fit-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-City&#8217;s Haaland fit to play against Southampton &#8211; Guardiola"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     Manchester City goal machine Erling Haaland could feature in Saturday&#8217;s Premier League game at Southampton after recovering from a groin injury, coach Pep Guardiola said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Haaland missed out on Norway&#8217;s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Spain and Georgia last month, as well as City&#8217;s 4-1 win over Liverpool last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Guardiola said the striker, who has scored 42 goals in 37 matches in all competitions, had recovered from the injury, telling reporters: &#8220;He trained the last two days, really good. He will be ready.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Haaland&#8217;s return will provide a boost to City as they approach the home stretch of the campaign, with three trophies still up for grabs.<\/p>\n<p>City, who are second in the league, eight points behind leaders Arsenal but with a game in hand, have also reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and semi-finals of the FA Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Their coming run of fixtures will likely define their season, but Guardiola said his players are well accustomed to the pressure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The last part of the season, international break, it depends on us how many games we&#8217;re going to play, Premier League for sure, Champions League, FA Cup,&#8221; Guardiola said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we win, we&#8217;re still in, if we don&#8217;t we&#8217;re out&#8230; If we drop points Arsenal will be champions in advance, if we win, win, win, we might be champions at the end of the season. We are used to it, it&#8217;s not a problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, City will face bottom club Southampton for a third time this season, with Ruben Selles set to become the third different manager of the south coast club to pit his wits against Guardiola in those three games. <\/p>\n<p>When asked if the managerial changes had made it hard to predict how Southampton would play, Guardiola said: &#8220;It is modern times. It was difficult to sack managers before, now it is around the corner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you don&#8217;t get results you are in danger. It would be difficult to analyse Southampton if their manager was appointed yesterday, but they&#8217;ve played a few games,&#8221; the Spaniard added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The pattern is clear, but every team is playing for something; there is an important fight for the Premier League and to be in the Premier League. Every game has its own characteristic. We have to be ready.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-citys-haaland-fit-to\/file-photo-fa-cup-quarter-final-manchester-city-v\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ360A1-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ360A1-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211; Manchester City goal machine Erling Haaland could feature in Saturday&#8217;s Premier League game at Southampton after recovering from a groin injury, coach Pep Guardiola said on Friday. Haaland missed out on Norway&#8217;s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Spain and Georgia last month, as well as City&#8217;s 4-1 win over Liverpool last Saturday. Guardiola said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ360A1-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3524,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3522\/revisions\/3524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}