Guardiola explains why Haaland was left out of Newcastle FA Cup clash

Pep Guardiola revealed that Erling Haaland was rested for Manchester City’s win over Newcastle United in the FA Cup .

The Norwegian missed City’s win over Leeds with a knock but returned to the line-up in midweek during their 2-2 draw away against Nottingham Forest .

With Guardiola’s men set to take on Real Madrid on Tuesday, the Spaniard was asked if Haaland was only left at home to rest ahead of that match.

“Yeah.” he answered. “I didn’t think to let him play and I prefer him to train to get back into his rhythm. After injury we always struggle to get back to that real pace of football.”

Even though the team was missing Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Savinho recently returned to the City squad. Doku has been missing since January with a calf injury, but returned against Nottingham Forest and also played in the win against Newcastle.

Savinho missed 11 matches in all competitions with a thigh injury, but returned for City’s matches against Leeds and Forest before scoring in the win against Newcastle. Guardiola stressed the importance of having the players back ahead of the latter stages of the season.

“If we had no players back today, we are not able to play the same players against Nottingham and today,” he said. “It’s impossible.”

“We learedn a lot because in the other way [without wingers] we played really well, but we didn’t have that players. Without that it’s more difficult, but we did have good results in the other shape.

“However, I remember against Bodo for example in Norway in the other one, they are so tight, so narrow inside. But give the ball to the wingers who the ability to dribble, to drop them and make turns and movements in behind.

“Both [Doku and Savinho were massive, but like Savinho was injured for two months and Jeremy also wasinjured for a long time. Antoine can do that, but the rest, they are not proper proper wingers. So they they helped us a lot today with proper wingers.”